A Tail Changes Everything
by frostykitten
Summary: Hermione was woken by a girlish scream and then loud, stomping footsteps. The first thing she noticed was that her bed was way too small, the second thing she noticed was a very angry Malfoy in a towel standing above her... Rated T to be safe.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG" Hermione Granger yelled into a throw pillow, frustrated with the annoying blond hogging the bathroom.

"Granger," came the annoyed voice of said blond from the bathroom behind her, "what could possibly be so horrible that you deem it necessary to interrupt my me time?"

"You! You are my problem Malfoy! You've been in there for 40 minutes and I need to brush my teeth before I can leave for class!" She replied as she carefully replaced the pillow on the couch beside her and then smoothed the creases out, before deciding better of it and pummelling the poor pillow instead.

Draco was annoyed now. He had told the impossible Gryffindor time and time again that he needed quiet time alone with the mirror for at _least_ an hour every day in order to properly maintain his flawless hair. He had spent weeks explaining this to her after they were moved into the heads dormitory, but she had always responded with laughter, so he had stopped attempting to make her understand the necessity of his me time; deciding that his ways were too high class for someone who was so obviously common to understand.

"Listen here Granger, you've _seen_ what happens when I don't spend enough time on my hair, it-"

"Yes, yes Malfoy, if you don't spend huge amounts of time gelling your hair every morning, then it sticks up all over just like Harry's" she said, rolling her eyes.

"My hair has _never_ looked like _Potter's_" He sneered, a look of mixed horror and disgust on his face. "It merely –" Draco was once again interrupted when a large, distraught looking owl swooped into the room to drop a package onto Hermione's lap. "What's that?"

"I have no idea" she replied, too mystified to keep up their argument. She wearily pulled the bright coloured wrapping paper off the parcel to reveal a deep purple box of what appeared to be chocolates. Ignoring caution, Hermione opened the lid and popped one into her mouth. "Mmmmm" She moaned, closing her eyes as she savoured the delicious chocolate.

While her attention was directed elsewhere, Draco crept into the room and snatched two of the delicious chocolates for himself, also popping one into his mouth before retreating back to the bathroom to finish fixing his hair.

Malfoy was like this constantly, he was very anal about the state of his hair, and his hair products, and his personal space, and his personal items, and his... He was anal about most things actually. Hermione had discovered this after Dumbledore appointed them head boy and girl, forcing them to live together in the dorms that came with the position.

Hermione, finished the chocolate she was eating, picked up the box to read the back as she popped another one into her mouth only to spit it out again as she read the large warning on the back of the box.

_**Warning: Do NOT, under any circumstances, consume before noon.**_

Frowning, Hermione searched the box for anything else that would have been helpful five minutes ago. It was only then that she noticed the letter that had accompanied the treats.

_Hermione,_

_May we present you with the most recent work of genius by Weasley Wizard Wheezes, Chocolate Bunnies... We're still working on the name. In case you have yet to read the back of the package, you're not to eat them until after noon, because no one really needs to eat chocolate so early in the day; chocolate is best enjoyed in the evening. _

_As this letter was charmed to stay hidden until after you had eaten at least 4 chocolates, we expect you're quite angry with us by now. Don't worry, nothing life threatening, and the effects of 4 will only last for two weeks... Give or take._

_We expect a full report on the effects (you're the final stage of testing this time, thought we'd give poor Ronnikins a break, mum's still not forgiven us for making him bald and scaly last month) _

_Mischievously yours,_

_Fred and George_

For the second time that day, Hermione found it necessary to scream into a throw pillow.

The twins had started to invent more and more merchandise for their store, using their friends and family as guinea pigs. They had all learned the hard way not to try any food laying around, and a visit to their flat brought new meaning to Moody's rule of CONSTANT VIGILANCE. You never knew when the bacon on your plate would get up, wander over to your neighbour's plate, and challenge it to a duel, or when the apparently harmless chair you were sitting on would decide that it no longer liked people thinking of it as an object and led a rebellion of furniture against their "human overlords" (the last time she visited, the twins were experimenting with a potion to animate inanimate objects).

She was interrupted by a disturbed shout from the bathroom: "GRANGER!"

Hermione walked towards the yell and peeked around the doorway, then she had to pause a second to take in the sight before her. "Malfoy," She said hesitantly, "did you eat some of my chocolates?" She asked, while trying to stifle the giggles that were trying desperately to escape.

A small, white rabbit was sitting in the middle of the bathroom floor, glaring at her with his angry little grey eyes. "Not. A. Word. Granger. Just _fix this_ so I can murder you." The angry little Malfoy bunny said.

"It isn't my fault you snuck some of my-" Her eyes widened in horror as she finished her sentence in a terrified whisper "chocolates".

The second the words were out of her mouth, she started to shrink down and sprout fur. Malfoy's predicament seemed a lot less amusing when she was an even smaller brown bunny staring at him. Now it was Malfoy's turn to laugh. "I can see you're not going to be much help," he dryly observed as she sat there in shock, all of his anger seemingly forgotten after having witnessed someone else in his predicament.

His comment was enough to snap her out of the shock of suddenly having four legs and a _tail_. She turned to Malfoy and glared. "Excuse me for being a little surprised that I turned into a _rabbit_!" She yelled at him, while trying to get her new legs to cooperate enough to storm out of the room.

"Don't walk away from me! You're going to tell me who sent those chocolates! Ooomf!" Malfoy had apparently discovered walking was suddenly more difficult. She glanced over her shoulder to find him sprawled out on ground; she had been lucky enough to be on carpet when she changed instead of the slippery tiled bathroom floor.

Hermione made her way carefully over to the coffee table that she had left the letter on, grateful that she hadn't had a chance to shred it like she had wanted to when she read it. The strings of profanities issuing from the bathroom didn't help her concentrate as she attempted to reread the letter.

Draco finally managed to get on the carpet and stomped over to her angrily – as angrily as one _can_ stomp when one weighs less than 3kg and has fuzzy feet. "_Weasleys!_ I'm going to _murder_ them!" Malfoy sneered as he read the letter over her shoulder.

"You'll have to get in line, there's no way I'm letting them get away with this one. It says here that the effects of 4 chocolates should last for two weeks, but we each only ate two, so we can assume that the effects will only last one week."

"Well that's _so_ much better Granger. I feel _much _better knowing I'll only be small and _furry_ for _one_ week instead of _two_." Malfoy sneered, causing her to roll her eyes.

"At least I'mdoing _something_ other than complain!"

"As you should, this is _your_ fault"

"_How_ is this _my_ fault! In case you haven't noticed, I'm as much a victim in this prank as _you _are!" Malfoy was oddly silent after her proclamation, so she ignored him and moved towards her room; this horrid situation might just go away if she took a nap.

Draco was lost in his disturbing thoughts that Granger was kind of adorable as an angry little bunny. She got all puffed up with indignation while she attempted to be intimidating but only managed to amuse him. He'd faced things much scarier than Granger could ever be; particularly when she had difficulty walking without tripping over her lop ears.

Hermione was having different disturbing thoughts than Draco, she was facing the _stairs._ They were suddenly these huge, intimidating things; she could barely _walk_ and now, if she wanted to get to her room, she would have to _climb_. Determined to do this, she walked up to the first step and put her front paws on it. This wasn't all that bad so far, but she had no way of pulling herself up with her small front paws, she would need to use her strong back legs and _jump_ up the step, which she somehow managed to do after a few failed attempts.

Getting up the stairs turned out to be the easy part, the difficult part ended up being the turning of the doorknob on her bedroom door at the top. Frustrated and angry at Fred and George for making her so helpless, she turned around to go back downstairs, only to discover that she had been mistaken before when she thought the stairs were only intimidating, they were _terrifying_.

Tilting her head to see down the stairs, Hermione gathered all her Gryffindor courage ... And backed far away from the stairs to huddle against the wall.

"Figured out there's no way for you to open the door yet?" The amused voice of Malfoy came from downstairs.

"Thinks he's so clever, wait until he realizes we need to go out the portrait hole to get help," Hermione muttered under her breath, cringing at the implications of her statement. She buried her face in her paws in despair.

This is how Draco found her when he got bored with plotting ways of painfully murder annoying Weasleys. "Granger?" He said, getting no response. "Granger?" He tried again.

He was starting to get annoyed with the Mudblood; Malfoys are _not _to be ignored. "GRANGER!" He said, nudging her with his nose at the same time, causing her to lose her balance and fall over. Draco immediately started laughing at her.

Hermione just glared at him from the floor, deciding that ignoring him was the worst thing she could do to him – short of dismemberment, which would be very messy and particularly difficult as a rabbit – so she did just that. She opted to instead give the stairs another go; she would need to get down them eventually, and there was no time like the present.

Draco was still laughing as he watched the Head Girl walk determinedly to the edge of the stairs and tilt her head at funny angles to see down them, looking like a crazy person... err, rabbit. "What in Merlin's name are you doing Granger?"

"Trying to figure out how to get down the stairs," Hermione answered him without turning around, worried he might push her down the stairs if she continued to ignore him while sitting at the very top.

"How hard can it be, all you have to do is..." Malfoy trailed off as he came up beside her and looked down the stairs as well, realizing how scary they were. "You first Granger," He chivalrously offered, only to receive a glare in return.

Hermione took a deep breath, once again gathered her Gryffindor courage, and actually managed to get her front paws on the step below. She was _stuck!_ Panic started to set in as she struggled to get her back legs on the stair with her front ones, but the stair was just too _small_ to land safely.

Suddenly, she found her butt tumbling onto the step with her, only managing to save herself with reflexes and luck. "MALFOY! You nearly _killed _me!"

He was watching her impassively from the top of the stairs. "And yet, you're still living to screech at me like the harpy you are," He gave her a careless shrug that only served to irritate her further. "Come on Granger, only 14 more steps to go, I'm sure the first one is the hardest." It appeared that he wasn't willing to try it himself until she'd gone down some stairs without someone to push her.

Sticking with her earlier decision to ignore him when he was being a prat, Hermione carefully lined up her next jump down to the next step. Closing her eyes, she jumped – and was surprised that she had managed it. 13 steps later she was rather pleased with herself for doing something that just this morning she had done easily and without thought; her determination to murder or at least maim Fred and George was renewed.

"I always figured I'd have to murder a Weasley eventually, but I thought it would've been the Weasel or even the She Weasel; for Weasleys, the identical Weasels were almost not unbearable... _Almost._ I've always had a respect for dramatic exits, and they made one heck of an exit at the end of fifth year," Malfoy mused as he hopped down beside her at the bottom of the stairs, apparently having less trouble with the trip down than she did – possibly because he wasn't terrified of heights.

"You know," Hermione mused, "We're the heads because we're the smartest in the school; between the two of us, I think we can come up with something truly terrible, befitting the Weasley twins."

Malfoy appeared to consider this for a second. "You know Granger, I – and I can't believe I'm about to say this – think you're right. We'll work together to get them back for this indignity, but don't think I don't still hate you." He held out his paw for her to shake. They spent a second figuring out how to manage a handshake without thumbs, gave up, and began cursing the Weasley twins all over again. And thus, a... dysfunctional at best partnership was born.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I was actually a little bit terrified no one would like the first chapter and I'd have to take it down because it was bad. This is my first fanfiction ever! I said I could never be able to write it when I started reading it, but I had this idea and I wanted to share it, so here it is. My original plan was a oneshot maybe 5000 words long, but I'm going to be ambitious I think, I'm having fun with this.**

**I'm kind of in awe of the stats page, people from all over the world have read this! I was so happy when I read the reviews and saw how many people favourited or added it to story alert, so thank you!**

** ~Frosty**

**Disclaimer: I really hope no one thought I was under the impression that I owned the characters, or any of that stuff, because I don't.**

**Chapter 2**

Their first and most immediate problem was getting back to normal size; the worst type of revenge they could manage as bunnies would either involve tripping them while they tried to walk somewhere, preferably carrying something heavy and/or valuable, or chew through all the cords in the house (which wouldn't really accomplish anything, because the Weasley twins had nothing muggle to _need_ the cords).

Hermione was anxiously pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace while Draco watched from where he was leaning against one of the many throw pillows on the couch.

"Okay!" Declared Hermione suddenly, causing Draco to jump and fall off the couch. "I know what we can do! We have to build a bridge out of dental floss and books from the back of that couch to the desk and then go from there to the window. From there, we should be able to either leap to the ground or signal for help."

Draco gave her a sceptical look. "Dental? ... You know what? Never mind. First of all, we're on the fourth floor, there's no way we'd survive a fall from that height and survive, thought you're welcome to try it. You're the brains behind the golden trio and that's the best you can come up with? It really is a miracle none of you are dead..." He trailed off as he hopped back up onto the couch, muttering about 'insane ideas and breakdowns'.

Nose twitching in annoyance, Hermione glared at him. "I'd like to see _you_ do better Malfoy!"

Draco walked by a spoon that must have fallen on the floor at breakfast, he froze midstep and stared at himself. "I'm so _fluffy_!" He yelled, irritated. "Though... As far as rabbits go, I'm a sexy one..."

Hermione stared at him with her mouth open. "How can a _rabbit_ be sexy?"

"Easy, I can make anything look good. For example, look at my ears," He twitched them for emphasis. "They're well shaped, reflect my innate sense of style, and they have an appealing colour, much like my hair does."

"Yes, I think I can see it. In fact, the colour is so appealing you should dye your hair pink when you're human again to match your pink ears."

He glared. "I'm going to pretend you didn't say that."

"Whatever makes you feel better Malfoy."

They both fell into silence, too tired from the events of the day, and the surprisingly exhausting trip up and down the stairs to keep up their normal bickering.

"Why would they want to turn people into rabbits anyway?" Malfoy asked tiredly.

Hermione took a minute to think about it. "I'm assuming it's an Easter thing... You know, hand out Chocolate Bunnies to your friends and family, then they turn _into_ adorable bunnies instead of people you barely know who pinch your cheeks and hug you then ask if you know who they are even though they haven't seen you since you were two and there's no way you know who this stranger who insists on invading your personal space is!" She was breathing heavily by the end of her rant, she seemed to realize that she was a little off topic and finished calmly "it would all be very festive... That or they're just evil," She finished, narrowing her eyes.

"You're a little unbalanced aren't you?" Malfoy asked wearily.

"Says the one who thinks his _bunny ears_ are sexy."

Draco puffed up his chest proudly. "It takes a real man to acknowledge that his pink ears are an asset to his appearance and ..." He trailed off when he noticed that Hermione was obviously asleep. Too tired to demand the attention he was entitled to as a Malfoy, he curled up against the throw pillow and drifted off to sleep as well.

Hermione woke up to muttered profanities in what sounded like at least two languages. Noticing she was awake, but not bothering to apologise for causing her to be that way, Draco called "Granger! You have another note from _them_ and it won't let me read it. It's been _mocking _me for the past ten minutes," Malfoy glared at the offending piece of parchment, which appeared to say: _Do you always snoop around trying to read other people's mail? Is it because you feel bad that you don't get any of your own?_

"Malfoy, I don't think this is directed at you, I think it's a generalized thing for anyone but the person it was intended for..." Hermione trailed off, realizing the futility of trying to reason with an offended Malfoy, she opted to read the letter instead, which had appeared as soon as she finished reading the message meant for snoops.

_Hermione,_

_ If you are reading this, you're probably hopping mad (get it? Horrible, I know, but George insisted). Someone hasn't found you and changed you back to normal, so our 6 hour safety net has kicked in and supplied you with some things that are necessary for your survival until someone can find you._

_ Good Luck,_

_ Fred & George_

As soon as she finished reading, there was a series of pops coming from the other side of the couch. Hermione stared at what the twins had provided which were "necessary for her survival". Apparently the twins thought a bowl of water, two carrots and alfalfa pellets were all that she would need.

Malfoy had followed her (at a safe distance in case whatever the twins sent was something dangerous) "What are those green things in that bowl?" He asked, twitching his nose with interest.

Before he had received an answer, he hopped over and started delicately nibbling on some of them. Hermione couldn't stop herself from laughing, "I never thought I'd see the day when the self titled 'great Malfoy' would be eating alfalfa pellets," Hermione muttered to herself. Apparently she hadn't muttered quietly enough, because he immediately started choking.

"Malfoys do _not_ eat grass!" He gasped when he could breathe properly again, glaring at the pellets like it was their fault he had eaten them.

"Then eat the other carrot?" Hermione suggested from where she was eating the other one beside him, deciding that if she informed him the alfalfa was actually a plant in the pea family he'd just call her a know it all and then continue to call it grass out of spite.

"I don't like vegetables, they're _rabbit_ food," He complained.

"In case you haven't noticed, you _are_ a rabbit at the moment. Be quiet and eat you alfalfa pellets," Hermione grumbled at him.

"Death is too good for those twins, they need something slow and painful... Like that Prometheus guy, but with hippogriffs instead of an eagle eating their livers every day as they're chained to rocks," he ranted, before grimacing and going back to his alfalfa pellets.

"How do you even know about muggle mythology?" Hermione had stopped eating, too curious about how the blood purity obsessed Malfoy family had allowed their heir this type of knowledge.

Malfoy scoffed and wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Father is prejudiced, not stupid; you muggles can be a vicious lot, he likes outside contributions for ideas sometimes. Plus he finds the irony of using their ideas against them hilarious."

She frowned, "So he'll gladly used muggle methods of punishment and torture, but refuses to accept that muggleborns deserve to be involved in the magical world just as much a purebloods do?" She asked, starting to get angry, and slightly disturbed about the kinds of things that seemed to pass as a joke to Lucius Malfoy.

Malfoy sighed. "Exactly. Now drop it."

To both of their surprises, she did. Maybe it was the resignation in his voice that had stopped her, or maybe she was just more inclined to listen to him when he was cute and fuzzy and completely unthreatening. They were well on their way to finishing their breakfast without incident when the portrait hole burst open and Harry and Ron stumbled in, yelling for Hermione.

She and Draco were currently looking as much like deer in the headlights as rabbits could look, Draco frozen mid chew on his alfalfa pellet and Hermione taking a bite out of her carrot. Ron continued up the stairs towards Hermione's room while Harry noticed something much more interesting; a random pair of rabbits in his friend's common room.

"Ron! Did Hermione have a pet rabbit?" Harry asked, his question seeming to unfreeze her from her shock induced immobility.

Ron's answer from her room was lost in Hermione's cry of "Harry! Help!" from the floor as he walked up to her with a horrified expression on his face.

"Did Malfoy do this to you?" He demanded angrily. He picked her up and brought her to his eye level to examine her for grievous injuries or some such thing, turning her upside down at one point. Ron had come running the second he heard her ask for help and was glaring around the room as if Draco was lurking somewhere with his wand out, waiting to ambush them.

"HARRY! I'm _fine_. Well, except for the obvious... It was Fred and George; they sent me some chocolates..." She trailed off; embarrassed that she'd eaten something before she had thoroughly checked it. "Besides," she brightened up considerably, "Malfoy's in the same boat as me," she flicked an ear to where he was still frozen mid chew.

Harry and Ron both stared before Harry asked hesitantly "Is Malfoy eating... Alfalfa pellets?"

"I'm a _rabbit_ Potter, I can't very well go around eating steak, now can I?" Malfoy questioned dryly from the bowl of pellets, completely ignoring the fact that he had wholly agreed with Harry's sentiments only minutes earlier.

Hermione sighed, exasperated. "That's not the _point_ Harry! You have to get us to the hospital wing; I'm going to miss classes if I'm not back to normal soon! Now _help_ us!"

"Malfoy too?" Ron asked, sounding like he dearly hoped that she would say no and let him leave Malfoy there.

"Yes Ron, we can't just leave him here, something might eat him or he could get into the rubbish bin or..." Hermione trailed off, amused at the annoyed look she was getting from Draco at the suggestion that he was a common pest like a real rabbit could be.

Whatever his reply was going to be, it was cut off before he could finish when Ron picked him up. "Weasley, put me _down_!" Draco's snarl lost some of its effect because he was trying to bite Ron.

"We could always just leave him here to be eaten by something," Ron suggested hopefully, followed quickly by "OW!" and a thud as Draco finally managed to bite him.

"You _dropped_ me!" Malfoy yelled from the floor, outraged.

"You _bit_ me!" Ron yelled back, holding his injured hand to his chest like he was about to lose the thing.

Hermione sighed; must she always be the voice of reason to these – these _boys_? "STOP!" She yelled as loudly as she could, startling everyone else in the room into silence. "Ron!" He jumped a little when she addressed him, he was used to cowering when she used this voice. It was wise to just do what she said until she stopped using The Voice because bad things happened when he ignored it; things like incomplete homework and glares so disapproving you practically had scorch marks on your clothes. "Pick up Malfoy and take him to the hospital wing with Harry and I!"

While Ron had learned to respect and fear The Voice, Draco had grown up with Lucius Malfoy, a man who had been using The Voice far longer and more menacingly that Hermione could ever hope to manage, making Draco immune to this pale imitation Voice. Ron was forced to pick up a very angry and very unhappy Malfoy bunny.

Being far larger and stronger than the small rabbit, Ron eventually managed to subdue Malfoy, but not before many scratches and bite marks were received on Ron's part and many profanities and insults were yelled on Draco's part – with Ron contributing his fair share of course.

Hermione and Harry were both laughing at them by the time they were finished. "Ron," Harry managed to gasp out between laughing fits, "You look like someone put you through a wood chipper... An _angry_ wood chipper," Hermione was the only one who understood the joke; the other two in the room ignored them. Ron did look like he'd come out on the wrong side of what was sure to have been an epic battle with a lawnmower or some similar yard tool, he was covered in scratches and bite marks, his face was red from the fight, and his hair – at some point, Draco had managed to get to his hair, because to Draco, there was no greater insult than going for the hair – was sticking up at odd angles everywhere. Draco was annoyed at being carried, but smug that he could best a Weasley even when he was stuck as a rabbit.

The trip to the hospital wing was as uneventful as was possible with Ron carrying Draco; meaning that Harry only had to stop, put Hermione down, and pull them apart three times on the way there.

"Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley, what can I do for you?" Madam Pomfry asked once they finally arrived at their destination. She looked wearily at the rabbits they were holding. "Please tell me those aren't students," She sighed, clearly knowing she was going to have no such luck.

"The Rabbits are Hermione and Malfoy..." Harry answered, sitting Hermione down on one of the beds while Ron dropped Draco down on the one beside her, "Fred and George sent Hermione some of their new merchandise to test, and they both ate some..." He trailed off, not really knowing any more of the story to explain.

"All right, you two get to class before you're late and I'll do what I can for Mr. Malfoy and Miss. Granger," She turned to Hermione and Draco, ignoring the attempted protests of Ron and Harry. They eventually gave up and headed to class, comforted that their friend was in good hands and not wanting to be late for potions."Now, are you two fully rabbits at the moment, or do you retain your human minds?"

"We're just physically transformed," Hermione confirmed.

"Now change us _back_, we've got revenge to seek!" Malfoy demanded.

Madam Pomfry finished examining them, and walked briskly over to her cupboard of standard cures, opening the door and muttering. "Children, I don't have anything to cure you, I hate to say it, but those twins are geniuses when it comes to their pranks. You'll have to wait here while I go fetch Dumbledore, maybe he has some ideas..." She trailed off, walking out the door, and closing it behind her.

"Great," Draco muttered. "_Now_ what are we supposed to do?"

"I vote we start planning our revenge," Hermione declared, and for once, Draco was in complete agreement.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**A/N: Yes, I went with the Ron is a food obsessed idiot route... Mostly because I don't really like him. Thanks to everyone who reviewed and favourited and added me to story alerts. I've been doing some brainstorming and have a basic idea of how I want the rest of the story to go, but if anyone has any suggestions of something they just **_**have**_** to see in this story, I **_**might**_** be able to work it in... There's always room for improvement in my storyline. Review? **

**~Frosty**

**Disclaimer: On the off chance someone thinks anything's changed since I wrote a disclaimer last chapter, it hasn't. So, to recap: Disclaimer still applies. **

"Albus, you can't be serious! If you know how to change them back to humans, then you need to do it! They're students; you can't just let them stay rabbits for the rest of the week!" Madam Pomfry was very distraught about the idea of letting children leave her hospital without being changed back to normal.

"Think about it Poppy, the longer they stay rabbits, the more incentive they'll have to seek revenge on the twins," he paused to stare off into space with a frown on his face. "And I _really_ want someone to get revenge on those twins," Madam Pomfry gave him a curious look, wondering what the twins did to Dumbledore.

"They took all my lemon drops and replaced them with cheese flavoured. Even more tragically, I'm lactose intolerant. No one messes with my lemon drops," Dumbledore trailed off, striding purposefully towards the hospital wing once again.

"Okay, so we've agreed on our first attack, but I don't see why we can't chain them to rocks and let hippogriffs eat their livers."

"Malfoy! For the last time, there's a difference between revenge and _murder_!"

"I don't see what the difference is! The revenge would be: they die! Painfully, like they deserve," Hermione was getting tired of having this argument, someone needed to explain to the boy the lines between almost harmless pranks and things that would kill people; not that the possibility of death ever seemed to deter Fred and George from bravely –or stupidly – testing out their pranks.

She was about to take it upon herself to explain the lines that seemed to be eluding Draco's understanding when the hospital wing doors opened and Dumbledore entered, closely followed by a flustered looking Madam Pomfry.

"It seems the Weasley twins have struck yet again," Dumbledore said with a seriousness that was contradicted by his eyes, which were twinkling with amusement. He cast a few spells over them, consulting the sheet of paper that appeared in front of him. "I'm afraid that they have outdone themselves this time children. According to my estimation, you both have 6 more days of being rabbits. Lemon drop?" He pulled a handful of them out of his pocket and offered them to the very distraught pair of rabbits. "No? Suit yourselves then," He turned and walked towards the door, throwing over his shoulder: "You're both expected to attend all your classes this week. Mr. Potter and Mr. Zabini will be here after lunch to carry you to them."

The only thing either of them seemed capable of at the moment were identical a disbelieving stares. Madam Pomfry looked at them with pity, "You've both been here since you were eleven and you haven't adjusted to dealing with Dumbledore yet?" She shook her head when she didn't receive a response and walked into her office.

"I get turned into a rabbit and these people expect me to continue attending classes?" Draco muttered angrily. "And Blaise will never let me hear the end of it once he sees me like this!" He almost sounded worried about the last complaint, Hermione was surprised and impressed he feared another student. She wanted to meet this "Blaise", but she had much more important things to worry about at the moment.

"What do they expect us to _do_ in class?" Hermione wondered, "We can't take notes, use our wands, or really participate in any way!"

"Yes Granger, however will you survive without practically jumping out of your seat to answer questions? You just might explode from all the answers in your head that can't get out because you don't have an arm at the moment," Draco mocked, earning him a glare.

Hermione was used to being teased for her... enthusiasm in all of her classes, so if that was all Malfoy was going to make fun of her for, then she was prepared to let it go; they were going to have to work together if their revenge was going to be successful, so she was going to have to let some of the little things slide to avoid murdering, or at least hexing him. She was really looking forward to giving Fred and George exactly what they deserved, but she believed it would be more fitting to get them back with their own method rather than using Malfoy's more deadly alternatives; she had no desire to go to Azkaban. She may have risked it if they had turned her into something truly horrible, like a cockroach, but they had gone with adorable instead of creepy, so their lives were safe at the moment – unless Hermione stopped keeping an eye on Draco, she wouldn't put murder past him when he was in one of his dark moods.

Harry chose that moment to walk into the room. "Harry!" Hermione said happily – she may have been working with Malfoy, but she did _not_ have to like spending time with him. "Where's Ron?" She asked, noticing it wasn't Ron who followed him into the room.

"He didn't want to miss the extra few minutes of lunch that it would have taken for him to come with me..." Harry informed her, causing Hermione to roll her eyes; of course that's where Ron was. They were both used to Ron's obsession with mealtimes and had stopped taking it personally a long time ago, but that didn't mean they found it a little annoying at times.

The person who had come in with Harry was a tall, dark boy with the vague expression of distaste all the Slytherins seemed to have on their face when they couldn't find something in particular to be annoyed with or sneer at. When he caught sight of Draco, he immediately burst out laughing in a thoroughly unSlytherin manner. "I warned you yesterday morning that this week wasn't going to be a good one for you, and you had the nerve to punch me! Do you believe me now, oh great fuzzy rodent?" Malfoy only scowled at him, while Harry looked slightly scared of the laughing Slytherin; usually, when a Slytherin was laughing, something bad was happening to Harry or someone he cared about.

"Actually, rabbit's aren't –" Hermione started, unable to resist correcting his incorrect assumption that rabbits were rodents. The boy just laughed harder. She assumed this was the mysterious Blaise, seemingly the only one allowed to get away with openly laughing at Malfoy.

"You really can't help being a know it all, can you?" the boy asked, still snickering in Draco's direction occasionally. "I mean, I've seen you in class, and heard Draco's complaints about you... But here you are, a rabbit, and you're _still_ correcting pointless little mistakes, you take know it all to another level," Harry snickered a little at this, causing Hermione to glare at him.

Hermione huffed, but only said "You must be Blaise". He nodded absently, moving towards Draco to examine him from all angles, still snickering occasionally.

"Are you quite finished Blaise?" Draco asked, sounding resigned to being laughed at for a while. Blaise tugged on one of Draco's ears and poked his tail.

"You have a tail... And you're all... Fluffy,"

"Blaise," Draco said warningly.

"You nose twitches!" Blaise exclaimed, seemingly delighted by his newest discovery. Draco rolled his eyes and practically growled at him, taking a step closer to his friend, intending it to be threatening, but only managing vaguely menacing... for a rabbit.

Blaise tilted his head to the side and contemplated him for a few seconds. "You just hopped," he said with big eyes, before falling into hysterical laughter again.

"Blaise!' Draco yelled in frustration. Hermione and Harry had been watching this exchange with shock and wonder; who knew Slytherins actually had friends. Everyone had always assumed that any relationships in that house were those of convenience, but they had just witnessed an interaction that proved otherwise.

Blaise was laughing so hard that he had to lean an arm on Draco's bed to hold himself up, leaving him open to attack from an angry Draco. Fortunately for Blaise, the best Draco could do was head butt him and attempt to bite him, only serving to amuse Blaise further.

"Zabini!" Draco finally exploded. "Shut up and pull yourself together! You're a Slytherin, not some Hufflepuff who goes around in fits of giggles! I need you to write a letter for me," he said, glancing at Hermione. Blaise stopped laughing and looked at Draco and then at Hermione.

"Does it have something to do with your furry situation?" He asked, receiving two affirmative nods in response. He tilted his head to the side and glanced between the two of them. "I thought you two hated each other".

"We do," Draco said, Hermione nodding in agreement, "But I currently have a tail, and a tail changes everything. Though it is a wonderful tail, it helps me if I need to stand on my back legs , it's well formed, and has silky soft fur." He trailed off, staring at his tail for a second before shaking his head as if to clear it. "We're working together until those twins get what they deserve," He finished.

Hermione was giving him a funny look. "Let me guess, it's a _sexy_ tail?" she teased, earning looks of confusion from the other two boys in the room.

Draco sighed; he had hoped she was intelligent enough to understand this by now, apparently not. "Of _course_ it's a sexy tail. It's _my_ tail," he explained patiently, as if this should be obvious, receiving an eye roll from everyone else in the room.

Blaise snapped his fingers in front of Malfoy, "Draco! Stay on task; I was writing you a letter?" He seemed to be both used to and able to deal with Draco, Hermione and Harry were impressed.

"I need you to forge my handwriting and ask mother to send me something..."

Harry picked Hermione up and carried her out of the room while the other two were discussing the letter. "I don't even want to know what you two are planning," Harry told her as he carried her towards the great hall. "I'd like to know all about it after it happens though, those two have it coming. I just don't want to get caught up in their retaliation, you understand..." He looked down at Hermione, who was glaring at him.

"Yes Harry, I understand. The boy who will one day defeat Voldemort is afraid of what the Weasley twins will come up with as revenge for a few harmless pranks," she was twitching her nose with annoyance again.

Harry shuddered, "Voldemort's one thing, the twins are on a whole different level. The worst Voldemort could do to me is torture then death, straightforward and everything; who knows what the twins could do. Besides, I'm not sure anything Malfoy is involved in can be described as harmless, he seems the type to get carried away, and before you know it, someone's dead". He finished as they got to the doors of the great hall.

Harry walked quickly to the Gryffindor table, sitting down beside Ron and across from Ginny. Ron said something that was probably a greeting, but his mouth was full so no one really understood him. Ginny on the other hand, immediately noticed Hermione.

"Harry! When did you get a rabbit?" She cooed, picking up Hermione and petting her ears, "She's so cute!"

"Um, Ginny?" Hermione said, startling the redhead holding her. Apparently, no one had bothered to explain the situation to Ginny.

"Hermione?" Ginny asked in disbelief. Then she started laughing. "You ate something from Fred and George, didn't you?" Hermione huffed in annoyance and wiggled her way out of Ginny's hold, still embarrassed that she had fallen for the trick. "Oh! You have to do the bunny face cleaning thing! It's always so adorable when they do that!"

"Have you eaten since this morning?" Harry questioned, eyeing the food on the table to find something a rabbit could eat, saving Hermione from being forced to attempt 'the bunny face cleaning thing'. At her negative answer, he took some broccoli and carrots from the veggie try he found down the table and made Hermione a small saucer, sitting the plate down in the empty place setting beside Ginny. Hermione hopped over and gratefully started eating. Throughout her meal, Hermione was forced to ignore the fact the Ginny was flapping her ears for her like wings, and lifting them up so they were straight up in the air, while continuing to exclaim about how cute she was.

"I still have to go to all of my classes. Harry, did Dumbledore ask you to carry me there?" Hermione asked when she was finished eating her vegetables. Harry nodded and they set off towards classes, Hermione not looking forward to merely being a visitor in her own classes just because she was stuck as a rabbit.

"Today was completely _pointless_!" Hermione exclaimed, once she and Draco had been dropped off back at the head dorms. Dumbledore had provided small rabbit beds for them to sleep in and placed them on the ground floor so they no longer had to brave the stairs in order to sleep. The disadvantage of this was that their bedroom doors were still closed, and when Blaise and Harry had dropped them off, the door was closed behind them. They were essentially locked in their dorms together overnight, alone. Hermione really hoped she wasn't a murderer by morning.

"It's... It's so round," Malfoy said, hopping out of the bathroom and looking traumatised. Hermione just laughed at him; apparently, he hadn't come across rabbit droppings before to have some forewarning. He was too disturbed to even insult her for daring to laugh at a Malfoy. "Let's just go to sleep Granger, I'm too tired to fight with you right now..." He said tiredly, curling up in his bunny bed. Hermione was in complete agreement and, following his example, fell asleep in her own bed.

Meanwhile, Narcissa Malfoy received an interesting letter from her son, requesting she send him the dark artefact he had received for his birthday from grandma Malfoy. Narcissa frowned, wondering if something that dangerous had any place in a school with all those children.

After thinking about it for a few minutes, she decided that –contrary to popular belief - Draco was a responsible boy who would not bring unnecessary harm to people who didn't deserve it. She pitied whoever had angered her son, because when he felt that harm _was_ necessary, he could be a ruthless as his father.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**A/N: This story is fighting me! I wanted it to be something short and it keeps getting BIGGER, completely against my will I tell you! I could have ended it when they were done being bunnies, but where's the fun in no revenge? Thanks to JillianUnleashed for the Monty Python suggestion! This chapter is my favourite so far (I'm halfway through 7 at the moment) probably because I love the ending; we finally get to see some revenge! And some... side revenge.**

**~Frosty**

**Disclaimer: Still applies... You know, in case you were wondering.**

Three days after Narcissa received the letter, Draco's artefact reached its destination. "George, did we order something from Zonko's? We've got a package," Fred said, paying the owl as he read the Zonko's label on the box.

George came in and examined it over his brother's shoulder. "I don't remember ordering anything, but it's entirely possible I've forgotten, I tested the forgetting formula last week, remember?"

Nodding that he did, Fred opened the box, finding a small, teardrop shaped black stone in the bottom. Fred picked it up and examined it from all angles, not finding anything particularly interesting about this rock. "What is it?" George asked, reaching out to touch it.

Suddenly, thin green vines broke out of the seed, quickly wrapping around the twins and everything else in the apartment until there was nothing that was not completely wrapped in vine. Fred and George glanced at each other from where they were trapped, then they said at the same time: "Hermione".

* * *

The next day at breakfast, Hermione received a letter.

_Hermione,_

_Ginny told us that Malfoy was turned into a rabbit as well; we've already gone ahead and patted ourselves on the back for that. Are we correct in assuming that the vine currently taking up our whole apartment and the rash that was a result of touching it is your revenge? _

_If it was (we know we're right), then congratulations, we never thought you'd get us back before you were even back to normal; we blame Malfoy, he's a bad influence on our innocent, gentle Hermione. _

Here Hermione stopped to scoff; either the twins had forgotten the time she stabbed Fred with a fork for trying to slip her a truth potion, or they were being deliberately sarcastic. She hoped they had forgotten; it would make revenge so much more fun when they didn't expect anything from her.

_The Zonko's label was a stroke of genius; we never even thought to suspect the package._

_We'll go ahead and consider us even now,_

_ Fred & George_

"We're not even close to even," Hermione muttered as she finished reading the letter.

"Good call on putting a Zonko's label on the package," Ginny said to Hermione. "They fell right into your trap, I almost feel sorry for them," she finished.

"They turned her into a rabbit, for no reason except their own amusement," Harry reminded her from across the table, "I think they deserve whatever Hermione can dish out".

"Which is a lot," Hermione said proudly, "in fact, if they were here right now, I would probably bite their heads off – literally, like that rabbit in _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_."

Harry was the only one who understood the muggle reference and laughed. "That rabbit had 'a vicious streak a mile wide', Hermione. I'd say yours is half a mile at best."

They both turned at the sound of a sad sigh, noticing that Ginny looked downcast. "I forgot Hermione was only going to be a bunny for two more days," she said mournfully as she played with Hermione's ears again, as had become her habit over the past week.

"Cheer up, Gin," Hermione said "Christmas holidays are coming up fast, that's something you always look forward to," she comforted, attempting to bring the other girl out of her melancholy. Hermione sighed, there was only one thing she could do to cheer her up, "Fine, we can have a sleepover tonight while I'm still a rab –"

She was stopped from completing her sentence by an excited squeal as Ginny picked her up and twirled her around. "Are you serious? I can take you to my room with me and you'll stay and let me pet your ears?" Ginny gasped excitedly and set Hermione down on the table, lowering herself until she was at her eye level. "Hermione," she started seriously, "will you do the bunny face cleaning thing at our sleepover?" She asked, looking too hopeful for Hermione to crush her.

"Fine," Hermione grumbled, annoyed at the lengths she had to go through to cheer up her friend. Ginny squealed something about hair colouring potions and ran out of the great hall. Hermione put her paws over her head and groaned; it was going to be a long night.

* * *

"Where were you last night Granger?" Draco asked when Hermione got back to the heads common room; Harry had taken pity on her and brought her back to her room to finally get some sleep at 7am. "Granger," Draco started again once he got a good look at her "Why are you green? And pink paws? Really Granger, I thought even _you_ would have better taste than that".

Hermione had spent the night being petted, dyed, petted some more, poked when she tried to sleep, petted, and then made to do the 'bunny face cleaning thing' for a half hour straight; she was as close to murderous as she had ever been, and Malfoy was painting a big target on himself by being annoying.

"No wait, I know better than that. Of _course_ you don't have better taste than that, you were raised by _muggles_," Draco finished, crossing the line. Hermione screamed and charged at him, catching him off guard with a head butt in the side and knocking him over, where she promptly jumped on top of him and bit both of his ears a few times, finding herself unable to slap him as a bunny.

That's how Blaise found them, Hermione gnawing on one of his ears and Draco yelling "Granger! Let me _go_!" Blaise froze for a second, allowing himself some time to take in the scene before he stepped forward, looking amused, and pulled Hermione off poor Draco. Hermione struggled, but wasn't actually angry at Blaise, so she refrained from trying to hurt him, Slytherin or not.

"I'm _bleeding_ you crazy bi-"

"Draco, I'm sure you did something to set her off," Blaise interrupted him, earning himself a wounded look that was completely ignored. "Umm, Granger? Why are you pink and green?" he asked, glancing at her and noticing her odd colouring now that she was no longer homicidal towards his friend. Hermione had her face under her paws and mumbled something that sounded vaguely like "Ginny", Blaise left it at that and turned back to Draco.

He looked at him, head tilted to the side as he contemplated his friend's condition. "Draco," he finally said, "did you know you're bleeding all over the carpet?"

Draco's response was an angry growl and a frustrated "Take me to the hospital wing already!"

Blaise sighed like Draco was asking something very unreasonable. "Fine, just don't bleed on me; you've already ruined the carpets..." Hermione didn't get to hear what else he had to complain about because they were already out the door and she was rapidly falling asleep.

* * *

Hermione woke up to someone nudging her side. "Whaaa?" was all she managed before she fell of the couch and thumped onto the floor. She blinked a few times in confusion, before glaring at the spot she had been laying to find a smug, but healed Draco sitting there.

Hermione pulled herself up off the floor, still glaring. "You deserved to have your ears bitten _off_, you should be happy I only bit them a bit after what you said!" she yelled at him.

He sneered down at her, about to say something that was bound to be offensive, prejudiced and downright mean, when Blaise interrupted them. "I actually think you two are quite a bit alike," he commented, sitting down in the chair across from the couch. "Think about it; you both like to read, are loyal to your friends, enjoy learning about pretty much anything, pride yourselves in being the best. Need I go on?" Apparently he did, because he was receiving identical skeptical looks. He sighed, "Never mind. I'll let you two figure it out, then I get to say I told you so".

As he got up to leave, Hermione was stuck by an idea. "Zabini, wait!" He looked at her curiously, but waited to hear what she was going to ask him. "Can we go into the hall to discuss this?" she had noticed Malfoy watching them very carefully, a suspicious look on his face. Zabini, seemingly intrigued, nodded and carried her out into the hallway, setting her down again once they were a safe distance from the portrait hole.

"What is it you needed that Draco couldn't hear about?" He asked her, once they were alone.

Hermione was unsure whether she trusted the Slytherin, but he was her only option, and she was pretty sure he would go along with her idea – Zabini seemed like he enjoyed messing with Malfoy. "Well," she began hesitantly, "I need you to take me to the Gryffindor common room, I have to talk to Ginny..." She trailed off, unsure of how to continue.

"And explain to me why I should be doing this".

"Well... It's going to be a revenge prank on Malfoy".

"What makes you think I'm just going to turn on my best mate like that?"

"Because I'm betting he's pranked you in the past and you probably owe him one, if not, you'll still get to laugh at him. Also, if you do this for me, I'llowe you a favour; anything within reason..." She trailed off, unsure what his reaction was going to be.

"All right, let's hear this prank of yours," he told her, looking interested. Hermione, encouraged by this positive reaction, outlined her whole relatively simple plan.

When she finally finished, Blaise was laughing. "I never knew you had it in you Granger! You know, you come off as a bit of a stick in the mud," he said, Hermione glared.

"Are you going to help me or not?" She asked him impatiently; they had to get to the Gryffindor common room before Ginny went to bed, and it was well after dinner already.

"Of course, this is too good of an opportunity to pass up," he responded with a grin.

* * *

Draco was lounging by the fire when Granger and Blaise came back to the head's common room. He watched them suspiciously, not trusting their newfound camaraderie. "Where have you two been, and since when have you been on speaking terms with each other?"

Hermione sat down primly, turning her back on him while he glared at her suspiciously. Blaise took advantage of the few moments his friend was paying attention to the Gryffindor and snuck into the bathroom, completing his part of the prank in a few seconds, and coming back in the room before it was his turn to be glared at. "Well," Blaise started before Draco could start with the accusations he knew were coming, "I think it's time I went to bed," without saying anything further, he turned and left.

Draco watched him leave, confused as to what his friend was doing with Granger, he had a bad feeling that if those two were going to team up against him, something was about to go horribly wrong for him. Suddenly remembering something, Draco turned to Granger, "Dumbledore stopped by while you were gone, he made me swear to tell you that we're excused from classes tomorrow morning. It's the seventh day since we were changed and he doesn't want us to be disrupting classes by suddenly changing back to humans – well, human on my part, I'm not entirely sure what you are".

Hermione just smiled at him, sensing that he was already disturbed about the trip she and Zabini had gone on, and that her smile would upset him more than any clever and biting comeback or lashing out angrily ever could.

She was more right than she knew; Draco was so shaken by this uncharacteristic smile that he actually took an unconscious step back before he turned from her and fled to his bed, not speaking to her for the rest of the night.

* * *

The next morning, Hermione was woken by a girlish scream and then loud, stomping footsteps. The first thing she noticed was that her bed was way too small, the second thing she noticed was a very angry Malfoy in a towel standing above her with startling emerald green hair.

"What have you done Granger!" He yelled at her.

She smirked his own smirk at him before responding: "Green hair Malfoy? I thought even you had better taste than that. No wait, of _course_ you don't have better taste than that, you were raised by _purebloods_," Hermione threw his own lines back at him, adding insult to injury. "You know," she continued before he had a chance to get a word in, "I was going to dye it pink so it would remind you of the bunny ears you were so fond of, but the pink potion was washable and the green was permanent. I think you understand why my decision was obvious".

It took Hermione's sleep fogged brain until she was finished speaking to realize what the implications of her first observation of the morning meant; it had been rather distracted by the second one. Her bunny bed was way too small, meaning she was much bigger than she was last night; she was herself again! She jumped up quickly – too quickly really, Malfoy didn't have time to move out of the way and she managed to smash his nose rather hard with the top of her head.

This was the final straw for Draco, she messed with his hair, turned his best friend against him, and then she _breaks his nose_! He stood in shock for a minute before passing out right in the middle of the common room floor, once again bleeding all over the carpet.

Hermione stared at him in shock for a second, thinking that he looked rather festive with his green hair and blood everywhere. Then it clicked that she should probably be seeking help or something... Right before she also passed out.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

**A/N: I'm kind of sad that they're not bunnies anymore, but there was only so much I could do with that. I was aiming for eight chapters, but I'm going to have to make it bigger than that. 10 or 11 chapters and a short epilogue is what it's looking like now... I never thought to check before, but my little *** I use to break up the story aren't working when I upload the document, sorry, I'm working on it, in the process of fixing it, I deleted and then resubmitted chapter 4... I'm not sure if it sent alert e-mails out for that, sorry if it did and threw you off. As an apology for anyone who clicked on this story yesterday, thinking there was something new only to find a reposted chapter four I have chapter five! Hooray! Also, I didn't make it clear that they were still fully clothed when they changed back, otherwise Fred and George wouldn't be able to sell very many of their chocolate bunnies because turning back would be kind of awkward... Plus they'd have to replace their clothes... Or risk getting tangled in them. **

**~Frosty**

**Disclaimer: They're MINE! All the characters and everything! ... Now if I really believed that, would I be posting on a site dedicated to**** fanfiction****? No. So they're not mine, tragically. **

When she finally woke up, Hermione was in the hospital wing. "Ah, you're up dear," said Madam Pomfry from beside the next bed. "You and Mr. Malfoy gave poor Mr. Weasley quite the scare, he came running in here saying something about you two having finally gone and killed each other," Hermione smiled, thinking of the scene Ron must have walked in on, and the resulting freak out. "Don't try and move yet, you had a concussion and aren't completely healed, you'll be too dizzy to get up for the rest of the day," Hermione was warned when she moved to sit up. Obeying the mediwitch, she laid her head back onto her pillow.

Draco was feeling much better when he woke up in the hospital in time to hear the end of Madam Pomfry's warning to Hermione. Apparently, a simple broken nose could be healed with a swish of her wand while the after effects of a concussion were more difficult to banish with fancy wand work. "I'm afraid, Mr. Malfoy, that I can't remove the green from your hair, you'll have to wait until it grows out," Madam Pomfry told him without any sympathy; she had been on the receiving end of his foul temper on more than one occasion and felt he deserved to take a hit where it would hurt him most – his vanity.

Draco groaned at her diagnosis of his poor hair and glared at Granger in the next bed. He knew she was the mastermind behind this, but Blaise was the one who did all work to make it happen. Since he needed Granger on his side to properly get the Weasel twins back, he was going to have to be satisfied with just getting his revenge on Blaise – only until the twins were cowering and completely regretting crossing a Malfoy, of course.

He pulled a strand of his hair to where he could see it, sighing despondently and closing his eyes for a minute to mourn his previously awe inspiring hair. Taking a deep breath, Draco pulled himself together with a reminder that he was a Malfoy; he could pull off _any_ look. Shuddering, he remembered his mother's brief experimentation with the muggle "sweater vest", she had added it to the wardrobe of all the Malfoys in the manor, including a poor, impressionable, seven year old Draco and a very sullen Lucius. Ever since that sweater vest incident, Lucius banned Narcissa from ever reading the muggle fashion magazines again.

Just then, Ron and Harry burst in to see Hermione, interrupting Draco's musings and causing Madam Pomfry to roll her eyes; she never could keep those three apart for long when one of them was under her care, if she didn't let them in they'd sneak in!

"Hermione! Are you all right? What did Malfoy do to you?" They both yelled at almost the same time, this time it was Draco's turn to roll his eyes; his father had some evil tendencies, it didn't mean he was planning on killing the girl he shared a dorm with. Besides, that would make him the prime suspect, and Draco's well developed sense of self preservation kept him from doing something so stupid.

"I'm fine. Malfoy didn't do anything, it was actually kind of my fault," Hermione tried to comfort her friends – unsuccessfully; she was immediately bombarded with protests that she couldn't possibly have been the one to blame. Malfoy snorted at how naive they were when it came to their female friend; she was fully capable of instigating conflict when she wanted to, she just usually chose methods other than the physical violence her two friends preferred.

"This whole mess is your fault Malfoy," she told him once her friends were reassured enough to leave her in peace. Draco was baffled as to how the daft girl had managed to spin events so the blame was solely on him.

"I suppose you're going to explain to me how this is my fault?" He drawled.

"This is your fault because you woke me up with your girly scream! I was so confused about how a first year Hufflepuff girl got into the bathroom that I didn't even notice I was human again. And then you were standing much too close when I finally realized!"

Draco stared at her in disbelief before pointing at his hair, "you turned my friend against me and dyed my hair _green_! I had a right to be angry!" He would be wondering why Blaise hadn't come to visit him in the hospital wing yet, but he knew his friend too well, and it was mutual. Blaise would turn up once Draco had some time to calm down and plot his revenge; instead of the nasty, potentially permanent hex first, and ask questions later approach that was usually Draco's reaction to these types of situations.

Ginny chose that moment to speak up, "I hate to interrupt this bizarre mating ritual/fighting thing you two have going on, but mum insisted I came to ask you immediately Hermione".

Draco rolled so his back was facing both of the girls, choosing not to dignify that question with a response; Hermione however, was required to answer. "For the sake of my sanity, I'm going to ignore the first part. Now what did your mum want you to ask me?"

"Even though I told her that it wasn't necessary because you're coming already and everyone knows it, she wanted me to formally invite you to spend Christmas vacation with the insanity that is my family."

"Of _course_ I'm coming Ginny! I was already planning on it anyway, my parents decided to go on a romantic cruise for the holiday," Hermione wrinkled her nose in distaste; she thought romantic cruises were kind of cheesy. Ginny clapped happily and the girls continued chatting until Madam Pomfry kicked Ginny out.

No one noticed Draco's contemplative look as he lay quietly in his bed.

* * *

Both Hermione and Draco were released the next morning with a clean bill of health. To Draco`s mortification, his hair was the talk of the whole school; some saw it as an extreme example of house pride, some saw it as a way for him to separate himself and rebel from the very blonde Malfoy family, and some (Loony Lovegood) saw it as an early warning sign that Nargles were starting to build nests in people's hair instead of just in mistletoe.

Draco wasn`t sure whether to be pleased that no one seemed to believe that anyone could prank him, or insulted that people thought he'd do something suicidal like openly rebel against the Malfoy family – his parents weren't as bad as some people seemed to think, but they could be pretty horrible when they wanted to be.

He realized that the people of Hogwarts weren't the only ones who thought he had done it for rebellion and separation from his family when he walked back into his common room after finishing classes for the day to find a very distraught Narcissa Malfoy.

"Mother," he said carefully, but his greeting went unheeded; the second she saw him she shot out of her seat on the couch and took a step towards him, eyes only on his hair. She gave him a look as if to say: 'why are you doing this to me?' before she passed out onto the floor. Draco sighed; his long day just got a whole lot longer.

"So _that's_ where you got your tendency to pass out from," Hermione said, having come into the common room in time to witness the scene; suddenly better understanding his fainting spell after she broke his nose. Draco looked to the ceiling wondering 'why me?'. "Aren't you going to check on her?" she asked, once she noticed he made no move towards the woman lying on the floor.

He glanced at his mother for a second before shrugging and kneeling down beside her. "I was getting to it, she fine – just being overdramatic," he said this all so flippantly that it surprised Hermione; the Malfoy family dynamic was more of a mystery to her than it ever was, she would never have thought the cold Narcissa Malfoy to be someone so... dramatic underneath the aristocratic exterior.

"It gets more disturbing; wait until she wakes up, there _will_ be tears," Draco warned her, seeming to read her mind – or maybe just her face; she was probably showing her confusion and shock.

Narcissa proved him right when she woke up a second later to find a green haired Draco leaning over her, and promptly broke down into tears. "Draco!" she wailed, "I didn't know you were so unhappy with your family, do you not love us anymore? Is this because I made you try on that dress with the breast enhancing charm in it over the summer? Why would you do that to your lovely hair! You _know_ how much I love to style it!"

Narcissa had yet to notice Hermione, as she was standing behind the couch Narcissa was lying in front of – Draco however, had a clear line of sight from in front of his mother. He motioned Granger towards the stairs, praying that for once in her life she'd _listen_ and just go. He could see her contemplating it for a second, head tilted to the side and eyes lit with amusement. She mouthed 'dress?" at him before turning and making her way up the stairs towards her room, blocking out the hysterical Narcissa when she shut the door.

* * *

An hour and many more tears later, Draco had finally managed to reassure his mother that his hair was merely the unfortunate result of a potions accident – his pride wouldn't allow him to admit that someone had gotten the better of him with a prank. After she was sure that he wasn't trying to leave the family or anything, she calmly got up, kissed him on the cheek and bid him farewell, leaving a thoroughly exhausted Draco to do damage control; Granger knew too much.

He opened her bedroom door without knocking to find her sitting on her bed reading. "Malfoy! What the heck are you doing?" She yelled at him when he opened the door, he would kill her for daring to do something like that and he just expected her to allow it?

She was interrupted from her inner rant when he spoke menacingly: "Nothing my mother said tonight leaves here".

"What's wrong Malfoy? Don't want the school to know you wear a dress and let your mother style you hair?"

Draco cringed, "I have a weakness for tears, okay?" he finally blurted out, eyes widening in horror when he realized what he had done – what kind of Slytherin just gave away a weakness like that?

"Okay..." Hermione said, filing this new information away for later use. "How did you end up in a dress?" This question was the one she had been dying to ask for the whole hour she had been waiting. She was even more eager to hear the answer when she saw him flinch as she finally got to ask it.

"Well," he started, "mother always wanted a daughter, but she always miscarried, so she never had anyone to do daughter like things, which is why I let her style my hair for me. The dress... Well, she insisted it made her look fat; when father and I disagreed, she claimed that it must have been charmed to make her look fat. She vanished my clothes and magically put the dress on me, which is how we discovered the breast enhancement charm. We also discovered that there was no charm to make her look fat; Mother was quite upset when the dress was slimming on me." He was cringing at the memory as he finished his explanation.

Hermione laughed hysterically while Malfoy scowled at her from the doorway. "I'm serious about this leaving these dorms, no one will know, or I'll tell everyone that you still have Lockheart posters up and that you hide them when your friends visit," it was Hermione's turn to be horrified as she looked around the room and realized that he hadn't knocked first when he came in, which would've automatically activated her concealing spell.

She wiped her horrified expression off her face and gave him an identical scowl. "Fine, and if you tell people about my posters I'm spreading it around that you've experimented with bust enhancement charms – on yourself". Draco had to admit, the girl probably would have made a decent Slytherin. He nodded, then turned and slammed her door behind him as he left.

Hermione shook her head, not sure she was ever going to understand Draco Malfoy and his contradicting ways. One minute he's sneering at her and mocking her and the next minute she finds out he lets his mother style his hair because she never had the daughter she had always wanted – which was odd, but sort of sweet.

She groaned and closed her book, too distracted by her strange new revelations to be able to focus on the words. Getting out of bed, she started packing some of the things she didn't use everyday in preparation for her Christmas trip to the Burrow. She still had three days before they were leaving, but she was never one to be unprepared. Her task was interrupted when Malfoy opened her door, once again without knocking. She glared at him, not bothering to yell at him about it – trying to yell some manners into him was about as helpful as banging her head against a brick wall.

"By the way Granger, I'm staying at the Hovel... The Lair? Den?" he shrugged, giving up trying to remember the name of the house. "That place where the Weasleys congregate and do their poor people things. Anyway, I'm going with you there for the Christmas holidays," he calmly stated, before closing her door and leaving – again.

Nope. She was never going to understand that one.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed, favourited, etc. Special thanks to SkyMistle214 who went through and reviewed every chapter as she read them. Okay! It is 4:04 am here... And I can't sleep, so I got some editing done! So here's chapter 6.**

**Disclaimer: Not mine... Etc.**

Hermione was left in shock in the aftermath of Malfoy's startling declaration that he was going to be staying at the Burrow over the Christmas Holiday. Did he expect her to clear it with the Weasleys? Was he even aware that everyone would not be grateful for his presence? Knowing him, he thought they should be grateful for deigning to grace them with his presence. Instead of chasing him back to his room and demanding to know what he was talking about like he seemed to want her to do, she got into bed and decided to ignore it until morning – he was probably waiting for her to come after her with some kind of trap... or something.

Draco was in fact waiting with some kind of trap for her; he had expected her to come running after him and tell him all the ways he was an idiot and how his idea was absurd. He waited, occasionally snickering, with his wand pointed at the door. His plan had been relatively simple; leave before she had processed what he had said, wait for her to come bursting into his room after him, then transfigure her into a hairbrush - he even had a witty comment all picked out, something about this being closer to a hairbrush then she had been in years.

After a while, he sighed and lowered his wand; a perfect plan ruined, and it would have been so much fun...

* * *

Hermione woke up refreshed, but with a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach that clashed with the sunny winter morning outside her window. Something was wrong... Something... Malfoy! He wanted to come to The Burrow for some reason that was most likely idiotic.

"Malfoy!" she yelled, stepping out of her room as soon as she remembered the reason for her dread.

He was sitting calmly on one of the couches, "Yes Granger?" he asked, looking up from his book. She glared. "I suppose this is about my decision to grace the Hovel with my presence?"

"_Why_?" was all she said, but he understood what the usually verbose girl was trying to say; she must not be a morning person he pondered.

"I've decided that they come as a packaged deal, and if we're going to get back at them properly we need to both be there, united front and all that," he waved his hand dismissively, as if this was all perfectly logical, not needing to specify who 'they' were. Hermione was not convinced; it would take more than that for Malfoy to do something he considered so far beneath him. Seeing her skeptical look, he added: "Plus, revenge is so much sweeter when I get to witness it". Ah, that made more sense; she nodded curtly and went back into her room.

Now that she had sorted out the reasoning behind Malfoy's apparent insanity, Hermione had an entirely different problem to conquer; getting him to the burrow - and she only had three days to solve it in. Normally, she would have argued with him, but he was right, the twins were a pair and she'd need a partner in crime if she was going to beat them at their own game – they were very good at their game.

Predictably, whenever Hermione had a problem that needed solving, she went to the library. Classes had ended the day before, giving the students Friday as well as the weekend to pack their bags without their schoolwork suffering as they struggled to get everything packed.

This was how Harry and Ron found her a few hours later. "Hermione!" Ron yelled when he saw her, ignoring the fact that her was in the library and he had to be quiet; the boy always did have trouble using his indoor voice when he was thinking about something else.

Hermione wasn't the only one who had to shush him, but she was one of the few that was happy to see the loud redhead in the library; she had found what she was looking for and it was time to start working on her plan. "Ron, do you think your mum would mind if I brought my pen pal for Christmas with me? She sent me an owl today saying her parents had finally given in and gave her permission to stay with me like we had been planning... Could you ask your mum for me?"

"Sure Hermione," Ron shrugged, "but there's not many spare rooms at home during Christmas time, so she's going to have to room with you and Ginny." Hermione cringed, if her pen pal had actually existed, she would have been fine with this, but if her pan pal was Malfoy in disguise... She'd have to cross that hurdle when she got to it.

"We actually came to see if you had remembered to eat your lunch during your research on..." Harry read the title of the chapter in the book she had in front of her "altered perception spells". He gave her a funny look, trying to figure out what subject she would need to know about those for.

"Professor McGonagall mentioned it the other day when I went back after transfiguration to ask her a question about the lesson, remember?" Harry nodded, he did remember when Hermione had gone back after transfiguration; that part was true, but he doubted her story about the subject of the discussion was the truth. Harry shook his head; this was Hermione, why would she lie? This war was making him doubt the people he trusted the most, and he really didn't like that. But she was just so quick with her explanation, like she had something to hide and a prepared excuse all ready for her to use if someone asked her about it... He field this information away for later use.

"Yes, that's all very interesting," Ron said impatiently, "but we were going down for _lunch,_ remember?" The other two laughed as his stomach growled loudly, as if to voice its agreement. The three of the m left the library and headed to the great hall for lunch.

* * *

"There's no way I'm going to pretend to be a girl!" Malfoy exclaimed when she finished explaining her plan to him.

"You wouldn't actually _be_ a girl," Hermione explained for the second time, "you would just _look_ like a girl to anyone who didn't know who you really were". It was really a genius spell, to anyone who knew who you really were, you would appear as yourself, but to everyone else, it would look as if they were seeing a completely different person.

"Even if I wasn't _actually_ a girl, everyone else would _think_ I was a girl," Draco shuddered, it was bad enough he was willingly going to stay with Weasleys, it was worse that one of them might actually _hit on him_ – which they would, Draco was sure he would make a very attractive girl, how could he not?

"Stop complaining about it, if Molly says it's all right, then you're going to be my pen pal Mallory for a while," she told him sternly, getting annoyed with his complaining; she was doing him a favour and solving their problem of getting him to the burrow.

"Besides," she added, suddenly coming up with something that would convince him, "if they knew you were a boy, you'd have to room with Harry and Ron, or worse, Percy," he looked sufficiently horrified.

"Fine, I've decided that I wouldn't mind people thinking I was a girl," he told her, doing his best to make it seem like he decided to do it on his own, and it had nothing to do with Hermione convincing him. This was unsuccessful, even Ron would have been able to see through him on this one – probably.

* * *

The next two days were a blur to Hermione and Draco, he had a lot to learn if he was going to pass as a girl. His first lesson was the hardest. "You're going to have to talk to Harry and Ron like they're real people instead of something particularly disgusting you found on the bottom of your shoe," Hermione warned him. He scowled, but nodded, he would think of it as going behind enemy lines to learn their weaknesses... He'd bide his time until he was himself again, and then he would strike.

Hermione was hesitant to impart her second lesson on him, it was going to be _weird_. "You're also going to have to call me by my first name, none of my friends call me Granger," she told him.

He cringed, she was right, but it was going to be _weird_.

"Why not start now?" she suggested, guessing he was going to have difficulty with it.

He gave her an annoyed look but attempted it anyway. "H... H... H..." He couldn't seem to get past the H sound, only managing to seem like he was choking on something. "It's too _strange_!" he whined at her. "Couldn't I just make up a nickname and bypass the whole name calling thing?"

She tilted her head and contemplated the idea; it had potential, as long as he didn't get out of hand with the nicknames... She waved her hand for him to continue with his idea.

"Personally, I like Harpy, because you are one. I'm also partial to nagging cow, and –" He was interrupted by Hermione.

"How about bookworm?" she asked, thinking it was appropriate.

He thought about it, but shook his head, cringing again. "That one sounds so... Affectionate".

Hermione rolled her eyes, "you're going there pretending to be my friend, you can't go around calling me a harpy the whole time!"

"Well, I can't say your first name; I choke on it when I try. It gets stuck here," he told her, pointing to his throat. She rolled her eyes; he was such a drama queen.

"How about just bunny? Then you could tell people that's the only thing he could call you after you wrote a letter to him about the incident?" someone suggested from the direction of the portrait hole. Hermione and Draco whipped around to see Blaise leaning there with amusement written all over his face.

"Do none of you Slytherins know how to knock!" She exclaimed as she stormed towards the stairs to her room, not in the mood to deal with the two of them, she had packing to finish.

"Blaise," Draco acknowledged, "decided that it's been long enough that I wouldn't kill you for this?" he asked, pointing to his green hair. Blaise couldn't stop himself and burst out laughing. Draco rolled his eyes to the ceiling, asking for patience.

"Yes, yes, you find it hilarious, now shut up for a minute," Blaise ignored this and kept laughing, but that was expected. "I'm willing to forgive you for this -mostly, but I want your help with something in return," he told the other boy, hoping this would get his attention.

It did; the retaliation for something as bad as messing with Draco's hair could have been truly terrible, and now he was offering a get out of jail free card? This must be one heck of a favour Draco was going to ask. Blaise motioned for him to continue.

"I need you to write my parents and tell them I'm going to be spending the holidays with you and your mother this year," he explained.

Blaise was confused; dysfunctional or not, Draco loved his family and enjoyed going home for the holidays – most of the time. "You know our parents would murder us if they ever found out we lied to them like that? Where do you need to go so badly that you'd risk that?" he asked him, more worried about the answer to his second question than the first one.

"You're just telling them this to repay a favour, the less you know the better. Now are you going to do it?" Draco asked impatiently; without Blaise on his side, this would be more difficult than it already was.

"Fine," Blaise said, "but if this gets found out, you threatened me and there was nothing else I could do."

Draco smiled, "I wouldn't expect anything less".

Hermione, who had come downstairs to pack some of her things in the bathroom off the common room, rolled her eyes. Slytherins.

* * *

Draco was nervous; the plan was to be put into action today. Permission had been gained from all the parents involved; now all that was left was making sure everything went off without a hitch. He was to get on the train as Draco Malfoy, spend the ride as he normally would in the compartment with Blaise, who was taking Draco's trunk home with him as well as his own, then he would be seen getting off the train with Blaise. This is where the more difficult part would start; he would have to pretend to forget something on the train and go back to his compartment, where Hermione would be waiting for him to cast the spell she had found that would turn him into her 'pen pal' Mallory Smith. They would sneak out of the train and then walk over to the Weasleys like they had met on the platform as Mallory was supposed to.

The ride went very fast for Draco; when you're expecting something to go horribly wrong at the end of something, its duration is usually dramatically shortened. He said goodbye to Blaise as planned and went back into his train compartment, where he panicked. Granger wasn't there. Where was she? She was supposed to meet him here and change him into Mallory. If she didn't show up, he had nowhere to go over the holidays; everyone thought he was somewhere else.

His inner panic wasn't showing on his face when Hermione burst into the compartment breathing heavily. "Sorry, Harry and Ron wanted to help me get my trunk off the train before they let me come find 'Mallory'" She explained, pulling out her wand and looking Draco over.

"I don't actually think that dye colour can be changed, it's magical so that glamour type charms can't cover it, as I'm sure you've found out by now," Hermione explained apologetically, "any last requests appearance wise?" She asked him, sounding more ominous than she had intended.

Draco thought about it for a second. "Don't make my breasts too large, it'll bring back bad memories," he told her, thinking of the dress incident and shuddering.

Hermione laughed. "That is probably one of the oddest sentences I've ever heard from you," she told him.

She cast her spell, shrinking his height from much taller than her to closer to her own height, altering his features and growing his hair to past his shoulders. She looked him up and down, changing his eye colour to brown, just in case the distinctive green hair and grey eyes tipped someone off about Mallory's true identity.

When she was done, he looked like a disturbingly pretty girl – Hermione was sure this was going to make his ego even worse; he'd claim that even turning him into a girl couldn't ruin his good looks. She gave him a last examination to make sure he would pass, before conjuring a mirror so he could see for himself – this was the only time they would be able to see him like this; they each knew he was really Draco Malfoy so the spell had no effect on them.

Draco turned in from of the mirror, slightly disturbed, but still smug. "Even turning me into a girl can't ruin my good looks," he said with a smirk.

Hermione whacked him in the back of the head, literally smacking the smirk off his face. "You can't smirk like that now that you're Mallory, you'll give yourself away!"

Draco glared, "you didn't have to hit me for it".

Hermione grinned him, "some lessons are best learned with some negative reinforcement," she replied in an innocent voice that was completely at odds with her evil grin. "Well Mallory, are you ready to go meet the Weasleys?"

Draco cringed, "Never, Bunny. But I _am_ ready to get some revenge".


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**A/N: This chapter was exceptionally hard to write in the beginning, I don't know why. Sometimes in this chapter, Draco is referred to as Draco or Malfoy, and sometimes as Mallory, it depends on the person who is using the name, and occasionally it's there just as a reminder that he doesn't look like he should, the same goes for the pronouns describing him. It seems that the word count on Microsoft Office and the word count here never agree...**

**Disclaimer:**

"Remember, be _nice_." Hermione felt it necessary to remind 'Mallory', he was starting to scowl already and they were still far enough away from the Weasleys that they hadn't been noticed yet. He was muttering something under his breath that Hermione was pretty sure would make her angry if she were to hear, so she elbowed him in the ribs and reminded him to smile.

Draco flinched and rubbed his side; the girl had _very_ pointy elbows it seemed. The smile he tried to stretch across his face felt unnatural and uncomfortable; if Granger's grimace at him was any indication, she thought even less of it then he did.

"Hermione dear!" Draco watched in fascination as the Weasley matriarch hugged Granger tightly, she didn't seem to mind though; it looked as if Granger was hugging back just as fiercely. "And this must be Mallory!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed, catching sight of Draco.

To his horror and Hermione's amusement, he was swept up in a hug almost a fierce as the one Granger had just experienced. Draco didn't know what to do, people just did _not_ hug him like this. He awkwardly patted Molly on the back and then stepped back from her, giving her an uncomfortable smile. "Nice to meet you," he told her politely; Hermione was the only one who noticed the few seconds of hesitation before he said the word nice.

"And it's lovely to meet you too dear," Mrs. Weasley responded with a genuine smile. Looking around at her family and honorary family, she yelled "All right everyone, let's head home!" Her declaration was met with a rowdy cheer and a flinch from Draco; he was pretty sure he died a little on the inside.

* * *

Draco looked around the room her was to share with Granger and the younger she weasel, disturbed at the minuscule size of the room he was to share with two other people; at home, his closet was bigger than this. He must have said the last part out loud because Granger whacked him over the head with what felt like the biggest textbook she had and then started to apologise to Ginny.

"I'm really sorry Ginny, she comes from a rich family that apparently never bothered to teach her manners," Hermione glared at Draco as he sat on the floor, muttering about concussions.

"That's all right, my room really is small," Ginny agreed, looking at the small room that barely fit her bed, dresser, and an inflatable mattress on the floor for the guests.

"Wait." Draco, realizing that there was only one bed and one mattress in the room and three people to sleep in them. "Are you expecting me to _share_ a bed?" He sneered. Hermione and Ginny looked at him in disbelief – Hermione because he had been at the Burrow all of twenty minutes before he was back to being himself and Ginny because Hermione's new _friend_ was remarkably _un_friendly, to everyone.

They were interrupted by Molly calling from downstairs that it was time for dinner. Ginny walked ahead while Hermione pulled Draco aside, "Listen Malfoy, you are now in a house of people who _hate_ you, if you keep doing stupid things like you just did in Ginny's room, you will be _exposed_". She spoke very slowly for him because he seemed to be having trouble understanding things that should be glaringly obvious to him. "I think that dye's soaked into you head," she told him as she walked faster to catch up to Ginny, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Dinner was traumatising for Draco. The table it took place at was a quarter of the size of the one that resided in the Manor's dining room, and five times the people were crammed around it. He was seated between Granger and the she Weasel and across from the twins; both of whom had been staring at his chest since he'd sat down – this being a girl thing was scary sometimes.

"So Mallory, why is your hair green?" Fred asked out of nowhere, not taking his eyes off Draco's chest; he was surprised Fred had even noticed his green hair.

"Horrible potions accident, it was very tragic," Draco responded, hoping they would just drop it. He heard Granger mutter something beside him the sounded a lot like 'drama queen'.

"You know who has hair almost the same colour now?" George asked. He was interrupted by the mashed potatoes that splattered right in the middle of his face. Everyone looked at Hermione across from him, potato covered spoon still in firing position.

"It slipped?" She tried sheepishly, not fooling anyone. Instead of the verbal lashing Draco was expecting her to receive, she instead got a large serving bowl of peas upturned on her head. George set the bowl he had just dumped back on the table, looked around at everyone, and yelled: "Food fight!" Chaos ensued.

Molly had her head in her hands, moaning "every time we all sit down for a meal... Monsters! I've raised monsters." Draco took a second to assess his surroundings trying to decide what to do. A hand interrupted him, tugging him under the table where he found Granger.

"Malfoy," she hissed, too quietly to be heard by anyone. "Let's get out of here!" She turned and started crawling down the table, towards the kitchen door. Draco shrugged; following her would keep him from getting covered in food, so he was actually inclined to listen to the girl for once.

They managed to get out of the kitchen and then out the front door without anyone noticing that they were gone in the chaos. "What are we doing out here, Granger?" Draco demanded.

"We're going to officially start the pranking," she told him, bending down in the garden. The gnomes started to gather around her, curious; possibly about the peas she was still wearing. This was where Draco came in; he waved his wand and conjured up a crate, then started grabbing armfuls of the gnomes and throwing them in the box.

Garden gnomes were particularly susceptible to suggestion because they functioned based on a hive mentality – what one does, the others will follow. Hermione and Draco only had to give them a few instructions and then cast a minor attention span charm on the to keep the focused – garden gnomes could do great things if they could focus on one thing for more than three seconds at a time.

They snuck back in, went upstairs and upended the crate in the hallway, vanishing the crate when all the gnomes were out. "Do we really have to sneak back in?" Draco whined, "I might get food on me".

"Whatever would you do then?" Hermione asked sarcastically; she had peas in her hair, Malfoy deserved to be covered in food too.

Draco got splattered with a stray scoop of turnip in his eye the second he entered the kitchen, Hermione was spared from this because she dove behind him. "I'm _not_ your human shield!" he hissed at her, reaching behind him and pulling her in front of him in time to intercept peas that were about to hit him.

"I _hate_ peas," Hermione complained as she brushed them off of her shirt. She reached for the nearest bit of food and jumped into the fray, Draco not far behind – he focused his food based attacks on Potter, the one he hated the most in the room.

"ENOUGH!" Molly yelled, finally coming back into the kitchen to take charge of her family again. She took out her wand and scourgified the whole room before sending all the children (even the ones who weren't young anymore) to their rooms for the night.

"Ahh, home," Ginny sighed happily as she, Hermione and Mallory got back to their room. "Vacation hasn't officially started until someone started a food fight at dinner and we all get sent to our rooms early."

Before Malfoy had a chance to close the door behind him he heard a commotion from the room across the hall. He glanced back over his shoulder at Hermione, who shared a quick amused and knowing look before they, along with everyone else in the house, made their way to Fred and George's room.

In the middle of the room, surrounded by the Weasley clan and their guests was what looked like every pair of underwear in the house shaped into a large gnome nest. The garden gnomes were still in the room, guarding their nest fiercely.

George managed to get close enough to the nest to pick up a particularly racy pair. "Hermione!" George exclaimed, holding a pair of underwear that were little more than a few tiny scraps of lace, "I never would have thought you were the type to wear thongs."

"I'm not," she responded, amused because she had a pretty good idea who they belonged to judging by the size of them.

"Those are mine, dear," Molly said, blushing slightly. Everyone in the room (except maybe Arthur) looked horrified by this revelation; George dropped them like they had burned him.

"I'd really rather not sleep with this shrine to underwear in the room with me," Fred said, shuddering; George was too shaken to comment at that point, but the look on his face said he was in complete agreement.

* * *

Later that night, Fred and George – sleeping in the living room until someone could disarm the gnomes long enough to disassemble their nest – were trying to figure out who would want to get revenge against them.

"So, in the past month," George said, reading over the list they had compiled, "We've pranked everyone in this house at _least_ once."

"Everyone except Mallory," Fred reminded, as if this automatically made her the culprit – she was, but that was beside the point and he didn't know that.

"I really don't think it was Mallory, she has no reason to want to prank us..."

"Well, we just have to figure out who wasn't at the food fight," Fred said, doing a mental check of everyone who was throwing food.

"Everyone except mum was there," George sighed, dropping his head into his hands.

Fred looked at him in shock at the same time George's head snapped up to meet his twin's shocked look with an identical one of his own. "You don't think..." Fred said.

"Indeed I do, brother," George told him.

"Well, what are we going to do about it?"

"I'm not sure yet..." George responded ominously.

"I think the underwear incident might have been enough humiliation for her," Fred reminded as he shuddered.

* * *

The next few days passed relatively uneventfully for Hermione and Draco, they were finalizing their next prank; kamikaze pies, charmed to throw themselves in the face of whoever got into their path. Christmas was rapidly approaching and Draco was getting more and more jittery; this happy family environment was really starting to get to him, they were just so... happy; it was downright disturbing.

Everything was going as planned, until Draco got a letter in the mail. It happened just as he and his two roommates were getting ready for bed – Draco for the bed, the other two for the mattress on the floor. A tapping on the window drew their attention, Hermione and Ginny looked at each other in confusion; almost everyone they exchanged owls with was staying in the house with them, so who could this one be from?

Ginny opened the window and reached towards the owl, but it wouldn't let her touch it, instead it flew over to Draco and landed on the arm he had stretched out when he noticed it was coming towards him. He carefully unrolled the letter as the owl flew away, apparently having been told not to wait for a response.

Draco went completely white as he read the contents of the message, dropping it to the floor. Hermione cast a silencing on the room in case Malfoy started the girly screaming thing he seemed to do when he was really surprised by something, like his newly green hair.

As Draco sat heavily on the bed, Ginny picked up the letter and read it, going as white as he had been before, looking from 'Mallory' to the letter and back again. Hermione snatched the letter out of Ginny's hands and read it over herself, feeling her stomach drop as she read the few lines on the message.

_Draco,_

_You parents came to visit today, and they found out you're not here. I got quite the lecture from both your father and my mother, you owe me, green hair debt or not. I don't know where you are, but I recommend hiding, I'm not sure it's a good idea for them to find you when they're this mad._

_Blaise_

"Okay, what's going on?" Ginny asked, looking from Hermione to Mallory and back again, taking in their pale complexions and anxious expressions. Mallory's green hair suddenly made a lot more sense and a horrible realization dawned on her as she continued to look between the two, waiting for an answer.

"Mallory is MALFOY?" She yelled in horror, running to the other side of the room to put as much distance between herself and the Slytherin as she could.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

**A/N: I had to repeat the last line of chapter 7 to make the starting of this chapter work... There's a link in my profile to a picture of the owl mentioned in this chapter (I'm not telling you what an owl's doing in this chapter, it woul d ruin the surprise). I'm still fascinated by the stats page. It's just so... Graph-y. Also! It has been suggested that the content of the last chapter wasn't quite K+, so I've put the rating up to T to be safe. Does everyone think it's more of a T? I've posted a second story... It **_**will**_** be short! This time for sure.**

**Disclaimer: Not mine...**

"Mallory is MALFOY?" Ginny yelled in horror, running to the other side of the room to put as much distance between herself and the Slytherin as she could. His disguise was no longer effective against her once she knew who he was, so she was seeing his normal appearance instead of Mallory.

Any answer she might have received was interrupted by someone clearing their throat in the doorway. Hermione and Draco both panicked and shot the first spell that came to their minds at the pair standing in the doorway, changing them into a hamster and a small pot bellied pig.

"A hamster, Granger?" Malfoy asked with amusement, glad he didn't have to call her Bunny at least some of the time now that someone else knew who he was.

Hermione huffed and glared at him, also glad that he wasn't a secret and she didn't have to pretend to be his friend all the time. "It's no worse than a pot bellied – Catch them!" She broke off, chasing after the escaping twins, closely followed by Malfoy.

Draco leaped across the hallway to catch George, the pig; grabbing him around the stomach and dragging him back into the room before shutting the door to keep him in there and going back into the hallway to help catch the other one.

Hermione had chased Fred and cornered him, but he had turned to run down the stairs and was rapidly gaining ground; for one so small, he was _fast_. Before she could manage to catch him, he was out the door and in the garden, where he found a hole into one of the many gnome burrows and disappeared down it.

Draco found her a few seconds later, kneeling on the ground with her butt in the air as she tried to reach down the hole with her hand to catch the wayward Weasley. "Problem, Granger?" he asked once he was close enough to be heard.

"Yes there's a _problem_, Malfoy! I turned Fred into a _Hamster_ and then he _escaped_ down a _hole_. We might _never_ find him to change him back." Her little rant had started out angry, but as she went on, Hermione realized how serious the situation was; by the time she had finished, she had tears running down her face. It would all be her fault if something down there ate Fred, and she would never forgive herself.

Draco was uncomfortable; very, very uncomfortable. It was bad enough when his mother cried, she did it all the time to get what she wanted, but Granger wasn't one to use her tears just to get her own way. Granger was genuinely upset to the point of tears and Draco had no idea what to do – well, he had an idea, but he really, really didn't want to do it. Draco grew more and more uncomfortable as Granger continued to cry, until eventually he gave in.

"Fine, Granger. I can get him out of there," he sighed. He was rewarded when she stopped the crying and looked at him hopefully. He was glad she stopped crying, but people weren't supposed to look at him hopefully, he was Draco Malfoy; they were supposed to look at him with fear, loathing, or adoration, not _hope_.

"How?" she asked him, still looking at him hopefully, it was starting to make him uncomfortable all over again.

He took a deep breath. "If you try to tell _anyone _about this, you'll be dead before you finish the sentence," he warned her before turning into a small brown owl with long legs and white speckles. He glared up at her with his still grey eyes, as if warning her one more time to not tell anyone about this.

Draco was down the hole and out of her sight before he had the chance to hear Hermione's awed "you're an animagus". Hermione was left alone to wait for him to come back out and hope that no one would notice that the twins were missing.

She didn't have to wait long; it had only been around five minutes when he came back out of the hole with a very distraught hamster in his beak. Some of Hermione's awed look must have remained because once he was human again Draco asked her: "What? Were you expecting a ferret?"

"No, I wasn't expecting you to be an animagus at all; it's supposed to be really difficult. What kind of owl was that? You have to teach me to do that!" she said in a rush, excited about the prospect of learning something new.

Draco hesitated, it was great to know how to do something that Granger didn't, and being her teacher would allow him to lord it over her, but it went against his nature to be so... _helpful_. He conjured a box to toss the hamster in while he decided what he wanted to do, she looked so hopeful that he actually didn't want to disappoint her. To stall for more time, he answered her question first.

"I was a Florida Burrowing Owl," he told her absently, distracted by his inner struggle. He finally came to the conclusion that he couldn't do it – disappoint her by refusing to teach her.

"All right," he told her long silence as they were walking back towards the house.

"You'll teach me?" She demanded excitedly.

When he nodded, she was practically _bouncing_ with excitement or eagerness, or one of those other things that Gryffindors seemed to have an abundance of. Draco was afraid for a second that he was in danger of a _hug_. "I'm warning you though; it takes a lot of hard work and studying... Never mind, I just remembered who I was talking to" Hermione actually laughed at that, shocking both of them.

"When can we start?" She asked him.

"After we deal with the Weasels we've transfigured into animals, and the angry she-weasel that's going to be waiting for us back in her room," he told her, surprised he had to be the one to remind her that there were more important things to do than learn something now.

They both hesitated outside Ginny's door, not sure they wanted to face her. Hermione took a deep breath and opened it, revealing her on the floor as she petted George's ears. Hermione understood George's pain – he was wiggling and trying to run, obviously desperate to escape.

Ginny looked up as they entered, and George took advantage of her distraction to run to the other side of the room and hide behind Hermione's legs. Draco made sure to close the door behind him before one of the evil twins could escape again.

"Would you please explain to me why I've been sharing my room with _Malfoy_ and not even known about it." Ginny asked Hermione; disturbingly calm.

Draco knew better than to speak up; this was one of those things that needed to be sorted out between friends without outside interference, particularly outside interference from the problem himself. Plus he was a little afraid of the redhead; he knew she could be vicious when provoked.

"Well," Hermione started, before she realized that if she was going to explain properly, the twins needed to be somewhere else. "Can we change these two back to normal before I explain?" she asked hopefully. Ginny waved her hand in an 'if you must' gesture, and Hermione glanced at Malfoy to make sure he was willing to change them back – he was still contrary just for the sake of being annoying sometimes.

They carefully stunned the twins before they changed them back into their human forms. "We're going to have to obliviate them, or else they'll know who you are," Hermione told Malfoy, obliviating Fred. He did the same, and they both levitated the bodies into their room and onto their beds.

Ginny was waiting for them when they got back to her room. She had a strange look on her face. "You two work disturbingly well together..." she trailed off, shaking her head as if to clear out bad thoughts. Changing tracks, she started again. " Now, I'm only going to ask this once more before I start hexing; why have I been unknowingly letting Malfoy sleep in my bed while we slept on the _floor_?" she asked Hermione in a dangerous tone, obviously still preferring to only address Hermione.

"It was his idea." Hermione said, pointing at Malfoy and ducking behind the bed. Draco snorted, she apparently had selective courage; it only worked in _some_ circumstances.

Ginny didn't even glance towards Malfoy. "I don't care what was going on in his slimy little brain, I want to know why you went along with it!" she yelled towards the edge of the bed where Hermione had last peeked up at her. Draco would have stood up for himself, but it was so much more entertaining to let Granger get yelled at.

"He made _sense_!" Hermione wailed sadly from her hiding spot.

"_How_?"

"We wanted revenge for being turned into rabbits, and he said it would be best to have two against two," Hermione explained; she didn't mention his second argument that it would be much more fun if he was there to witness the results.

Ginny perked up a little at that. "Then you're not having some sort of secret affair?" she asked, only half joking. The adamant no she received from both and their matching looks of horror were all the reassurance she needed that she was wrong.

Ginny grinned evilly. "I won't tell anyone about this, but in return, I get the bed, Hermione gets the mattress, and _you_ get to sleep on the _floor_." She told Draco

Hermione and Ginny both laughed at the face he made at the suggestion that a Malfoy sleep on the floor, but he had no other choice now that home wasn't an option anymore. Draco paled a bit as he remembered the letter he had received before the incident with the twins.

"They won't find you here," Hermione told him reassuringly, correctly guessing what had caused his sudden reaction. Draco looked up at that, worried he was either getting too close to the Gryffindor to be able to keep his walls up easily, or that he was letting her know him well enough to guess what he was thinking.

"You're right," Draco said two words he never thought he'd say to her. He was still worried about what would happen when they found him, but that probably wouldn't be until he returned to Hogwarts, so he was safe for the next while.

* * *

In the rush before Christmas everyone was too busy to have the spare time to worry about anything. Molly was throwing a Christmas party for the entire order and her whole family on Christmas Eve – a _very _large gathering of people who needed a lot of food. Everyone was put to work, including Mallory, leaving him not time to start teaching Hermione how to become an animagus, much to her disappointment.

Draco was appalled when he was assigned decorating duty along with Hermione and Ginny; they were the only 'girls' there and Molly didn't trust any of her boys with something involving taste – she loved them, but they were clueless a lot of the time.

Draco was still placing tinsel on the tree when the fireplace flared green and Dumbledore stepped out, looking around the room that was nearly deserted, save for Draco, of course. "Ah, Mr. Malfoy, your parents are getting quite distraught over your disappearance," Dumbledore told him, shocking Draco with his ability to see through the charm hiding his appearance. "This _is_ one of the last places they'd think to look for you," he added with a chuckle, seemingly amused with the childish shenanigans of his students.

Draco was actually too surprised by Dumbledore to even acknowledge Hermione when she came in the room. "Professor Dumbledore! Is there something you needed?" she asked, looking a little worriedly between the other two in the room.

"Yes, Miss. Granger, I'm here to see Arthur and Molly about some important business. I was just telling Mr. Malfoy here about how worried his parents are – I assume you had something to do with this?" Hermione blushed shamefully, and looked at the floor, nodding.

"Don't tell my parents where I am, I'd rather not face them until they've had some time to cool down," Draco told Dumbledore, as close to pleading as he had ever been.

"How about this; I won't tell them where you are unless they come to me and ask if I know?" Dumbledore suggested.

Draco knew that this deal was the best he was going to get, so he was forced to agree. Dumbledore smiled at them both, and went off in search of the older Weasleys.

All the Weasley children and Harry came into the room as Dumbledore was leaving; they demanded that Hermione and Mallory tell them everything they knew about his visit.

"He's probably here because Snape's betrayed us or something, I wouldn't put it past the slimy git." Fred decided loudly as the fireplace flared up green again.

"The overgrown bat shouldn't even be allowed to..." George's comment trailed off as everyone facing the fireplace paled. "He's just came out of the fireplace, didn't he?" He asked with resignation, already knowing the answer. Draco smirked, this could be entertaining. Hermione elbowed him and glared, reminding him not to smirk until he was himself again.

Apparently her elbow came too late, because Snape was staring at him pretty hard. "You!" he said, pointing to Draco, "Come here, I have a favour to ask you," Snape ordered. Draco obediently walked over, thinking Severus was going to kill him for worrying his parents and then give them the body so they'd have something to bury, but he was dealing with Severus Snape, he'd look the same right before he murdered someone as he'd look while calmly discussing the weather - the man didn't have a polite bone in his body.

"What did you need Sir?" Draco asked, trying to sound girly and unMalfoylike. Severus just rolled his eyes and dragged him out of hearing range of everyone else to hiss, "Draco, I have no idea what you're doing here, but your parents are going insane with worry!" He started to add more, but Draco interrupted him.

"I'm here to get revenge against the Weasley twins, Severus. They turned me into a _rabbit_; I can't let them get away with that!" Snape observed his godson for a second, glancing between him and the Granger girl, who was shooting worried looks over at the two in the corner every few seconds.

"I know a thing or two about wanting to get revenge on a _Weasley_," Snape told him, glaring over at the twins. "I actually have an idea..." He appeared to contemplate something for a little while, before giving a smile that could make a basilisk slither home to its mother – luckily, Draco was used to it. "I won't give you away if you do something for me."

Snape leaned down and whispered a few things in Draco's ear, motioning to the twins and he did. An evil grin spread across Draco's face, and the twins actually shared uncomfortable looks, they were sure to be on their guard for the next little while. Draco nodded to Snape once he was finished listening, still with the evil grin on his face. Snape left the room to find Dumbledore, leaving the twins to share worried glances again.

Draco looked over to Hermione, and noticing she had been watching his exchange with Snape, motioned her over. The twins looked even more uncomfortable and then downright disturbed after Hermione heard what Malfoy had to say and shared the evil grin, both of them turning to look at Fred and George.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

**A/N: We're nearing the end! There's one more chapter and an epilogue left... It's going to be sad to see this finished I think. Also... The cupcake thing... I realized it could be pictured as dirty so I found a picture of what I wanted it to look like and posted it in my profile, picture that except with a real cupcake. Get your minds out of the gutter; undergarments don't count as clothes, so they're underneath it. Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed! I don't usually respond unless someone asks a direct question that isn't answered in the next chapter, but I read them all and appreciate them!**

**~Frosty**

**... If things make slightly less sense in this one, it's 4:30 am and I didn't decided to start editing the chapter until half an hour ago, so blame it on the sleep deprivation.  
**

**Disclaimer: In case you missed the last 8 or so, none of it's mine – still.**

"How're we going to do this?" Hermione asked Draco. They were still in the corner, planning how to act out Snape's revenge.

"Well, if the way they keep glancing at us is any indication, then they suspect we're up to something and are going to be on their guard..." He answered, running his hand through his hair as he thought. His eyes suddenly lit up as he came up with an idea. "They'll be on their guard against anything magical" he started slowly, "but not muggle things!" he finished triumphantly.

Hermione stared at him in disbelief. "I think you've hit your head," she said worriedly.

Draco glared, but continued with his idea. "We just have to get them somewhere alone, isn't there some sort of ... 'lectricity' thing that could do that?"

Hermione sighed; he really needed to take muggle studies or something; though she was secretly pleased that he put that much faith in muggle technologies. "I'm the only muggle born in the house," she explained to him patiently, "the only ones who would even be able to use muggle things in this house are Harry and I... And possibly Arthur, but I haven't trusted him with anything muggle since I found him about to shove a fork in one of the electrical outlets the last time he came to visit my dad to talk about batteries or some such thing."

Draco had no idea what an outlet was or why a fork shouldn't be in one, but he assumed something bad would happen, he filed this away for later use in case he ever ended up in a muggle home. "How do we get them alone then?" he asked, drawing on her greater knowledge of how their minds worked.

"Easy, we don't," she told him smugly. Now he was confused. "_We_ don't get them alone, we get someone _else_ to get them somewhere alone, someone they wouldn't suspect."

"Who?"

"Molly," she told him happily. "They made all her pots and pans chase Ron around the house over the summer, they got all kinds of dents and chips in them and she hasn't got them back for it yet. I'm pretty sure she'd be willing to help."

They knew that they weren't going to be able to ask Molly to help them until Dumbledore and Snape had left, so they went back over to where everyone else seemed to be plotting how to use the extendible ears to eavesdrop on the meeting currently taking place in the kitchen. "How do you know Snape, Mallory?" Harry asked as they got back.

"He's friends with my parents," Draco answered honestly. Harry gave him a hard look for a second, no doubt wondering how anyone would _willingly_ subject themselves to Snape's presence. Draco didn't understand it himself really, but Severus wasn't so bad once you got to know him.

Fred and George were just getting back into the room with their extendable ears when Dumbledore and Snape passed them and left through the fire. Molly and Arthur followed their path back into the room, looking serious. "Children, one of your classmates seems to have disappeared," Molly said gravely. "Severus is checking the homes of all the seventh years in case he's staying with them... Even the really unlikely ones."

Even thought she had a bad feeling she knew who it was that was missing, Hermione asked, "who's missing?"

"Draco Malfoy," Arthur told them, causing Ginny to burst out laughing.

"I'm sorry, it's just so... sad that I can't stop laughing," she weakly defended herself before turning and running from the room, her hysterical laughter could be heard as she made her way up to her bedroom.

"We better go... err, console her," Hermione said quickly, dragging Mallory's arm and running from the room after Ginny.

They found her on her bed in hysterics. "Snape talked to Malfoy and he didn't even know he was the one he was looking for!" she told Hermione when they came in the room - she still hadn't gotten into the habit of addressing Draco directly.

"Actually... He knew exactly who he was talking to. _Someone_ forgot he couldn't smirk like that when he didn't look like himself," Hermione told Ginny, who stopped laughing once her joke was ruined.

"Why didn't he take him home then?"

"Your brothers offended him; he wanted Malfoy to get his revenge for him in exchange for being allowed to stay," Hermione explained.

"What did he ask you to do?" She asked Draco, too curious to notice that she was addressing him directly for the first time in the conversation.

"We're not telling you." He told her, with a stern glance at Hermione to warn her that she wasn't to tell either. "We don't know if you're working with them or not." He ignored her offended look, he was a Slytherin, and as such, he didn't trust any of these Gryffindors.

"We should get started on this," Hermione told him, he agreed and went in search of Molly.

They conveniently found her alone in the kitchen. "I know they can be horrible people, but no one deserves to have a child go missing like that," she was saying sadly to herself.

Draco was almost touched that this person his parents had been nothing but horrible to could still feel empathy for them. "Molly, we need your help with something," Hermione told her, unable to come up with a response to what Molly had been saying to herself – she wasn't even sure if she was supposed to hear what had been said.

"What is it you two need?"

"Fred and George said something mean about Snape as he arrived, and he heard it. He asked us to get his revenge for him," Hermione explained, Molly was more than happy to help lure them into a room, but she didn't want to know anything about the revenge aside from the fact that no one would be hurt.

* * *

"Fred! George!" Molly screeched from downstairs, "I need you two to go into the attic and bring spare linens down!"

They both groaned. "What are the chances she forgets she asked us?" Fred asked.

"I'm not going to forget I asked you, now _move_ it!"

"She's scary sometimes," George told his twin, who was nodding in agreement.

Unsuspecting of any foul play, the twins made their way to the attic; where they were immediately stunned by the pair laying in wait for them.

* * *

Hermione and Draco were doing their best to move the twins downstairs without making enough noise to wake the sleeping household. They had stunned the twins in the afternoon, but were forced to wait until the middle of the night to get them downstairs. Hermione was bringing George down by levitating him, but Malfoy had insisted dragging Fred down the stairs, banging his head on every step on the way down.

"Malfoy!" Hermione hissed at him, "I told their mother that no one was going to get hurt! And you're going to wake someone up!" He rolled his eyes and cast a silencing charm around them, Hermione glared, but didn't bother trying to stop him; they were almost at the bottom anyway.

When they finally managed to get the twins into the entranceway on the ground floor, they both looked up at the ceiling, contemplating how they were going to make this work. "Okay, you get them up there and I'll transfigure their robes," Hermione told him, already starting her task.

Draco leaned back and watched her work - he really couldn't do much until she was finished. He would never admit it to anyone, but he rather enjoyed the look of concentration she got on her face when she was completely focused on something, it was endearing. She actually wasn't all that bad now that he knew her better, she wasn't near as stiff and uptight as he had always assumed. She was occasionally even fun to be around.

Draco was interrupted from his inner monologue by Hermione, "why haven't you started on George?" she demanded.

He scowled, this was not one of the times she was fun to be around. The finished setting up their prank and stopped to admire their handiwork. They both grinned; this was going to be good.

* * *

The next morning, the whole Weasley household got quite the shock: Fred and George were stuck to the ceiling by their feet, wearing robes that had been charmed to look like bat wings. Their ears had even been transfigured into bat ears.

"I'm never insulting Snape again," Harry said, staring up at the twins in awe. They were very red in the face from hanging upside down all night and waving their arms frantically, trying to get their dumbstruck family to help them, but only succeeding in making their 'wings' flap. "Was this what Snape wanted to talk to you about Mallory?" Everyone turned to look at Hermione and Draco, who were both waving up at the twins.

"You know boys, if you hadn't done something evil to everyone in the house, then maybe one of us would feel like we have to get you down," Molly told her mischievous sons with a stern look.

"I think it would do you both some good to stay up there for a while, maybe it will make you think twice about testing your products on family members," Arthur added, grinning up at his sons.

Draco took out the camera he had hidden behind his back, snapping a picture of the pair attached to the ceiling. Hermione was the only one who noticed and looked at him questioningly. "Severus made me promise to take a picture of the end result, said something about the picture of Potter he had on this dartboard needed replacing," Draco told her, smirking at the thought and earning an elbow in the side for forgetting he wasn't supposed to smirk.

"Elbow me again Granger, and I'll make you regret it," Draco warned quietly, finally tired of the bruises on his ribs.

"I wouldn't _have_ to elbow you if you'd just _stop_ smirking!" She hissed back.

* * *

"Hermione, dear, it's time for the annual Christmas holidays quidditch match, you said you and your friend would like to use the kitchen? Molly asked her later during breakfast. The twins had been eventually let down, after being forced to swear an unbreakable vow to never anyone while under their parent's roof. Arthur had thought it was a little bit too harsh, but Molly was still quite upset about her dented pots.

"Yes, we need to bake some pies," Hermione explained, leaving out that no one was going to be eating the pies.

Everyone soon filed outside to brave the cold and play their game, while Hermione and Draco moved to the kitchen – Draco casting wistful looks outside at the people playing quidditch. Hermione caught his look and sighed, she would never understand everyone's obsession with it; baking was much more fun.

Unsurprisingly, Draco had rarely been in a kitchen, much less attempted to bake something, but he was determined to help regardless of how much help he would actually be. "Granger... How does this turn into pie filling?" he asked as he poked the can of cherry pie filling with his wand– they were hardly going to take the extra time to make the pies from scratch only have them squashed onto someone's face.

"The pie filling is _inside_ the can, it's a muggle shortcut," she explained patiently, smirking when he took a step back and started poking the can from a distance. "Just take the can opener like this, and then turn this knob here," she demonstrated how to work the can opener for him on the first can, and then sent him to work on the next two while she continued rolling the pit crust.

"Granger, are you sure these things will make a pie when they're done?" he asked for what felt like the 100th time.

"Yes Malfoy, I've done it quite a few times. I promise it'll look like a pie, I'm even making an extra one so I can prove to you it _tastes_ like a pie too." Draco still looked doubtful, but Hermione went back to rolling the crust again. "Malfoy, could you sprinkle some flour on the counter here? It's starting to get sticky."

Draco peeked into the bag she had indicated and wrinkled his nose. "Granger, my hand would get all dirty if I did that."

Hermione glared at him, would it really kill him to be helpful? She was really starting to get fed up with his constant attitude. He wanted to help bake but didn't actually want to get messy? She would show him 'all dirty'. She upturned the bag of flour on his unsuspecting head. "There," she told him cheerily, "_now_ you're 'all dirty', and your hair is back to the right colour."

"That's it Granger! I've put up with you dragging me around, elbowing me, dying my _hair_, and now this? This is the final straw!" He turned around and stomped out of the room, trailing flour behind him.

Hermione tilted her head to the side as she watched him go, wondering what in the world he planned on doing for revenge. She would need to be on her guard.

The oven timer beeped, signalling that the pies were done and distracting her from worrying about surprise attacks of any kind.

While Hermione was bent over pulling one of the pies out of the oven, she felt a spell hit her. Nothing hurt or seemed horribly wrong, so she carefully took the last pie out of the oven and sat it on the counter before turning around to glare at a smug Draco. "That's a good look for you, Granger, the frosting really brings out your eyes," he told her, grinning.

She looked down at herself, frowning. Her eyes widened in horror as she saw what appeared to be _frosting_. "Malfoy... Why do you even _know_ a spell to transfigure someone's clothes into a giant pink cupcake?" She actually wasn't sure if she wanted to know to answer, but she had to ask.

He grinned evilly. "Blaise turned my hair green; I turn his clothes into a large pink cupcake. I figured it was fitting that you shared his future frosting fate since you were the mastermind behind the whole incident, Cupcake."

Hermione cringed; she really hoped he wasn't going to keep calling her Cupcake now.

Unfortunately for her, Draco had noticed the cringe and made a mental not to call her Cupcake as frequently as possible.

"Hermione dear, if I had known this was what you were going to do when you asked to use the kitchen, I'm not sure I would have let you..." Molly said, looking confused, as the whole Weasley clan plus Harry came in behind her and adopted similar looks.

Hermione turned bright red and ran from the room, pushing Draco into a wall as she passed him in the doorway.

Ginny watched this exchange with amusement. "Mum, I think Hermione made the pies on the counter there, and Mallory charmed her clothes to be like that..." She explained in place of her friend as she left the room to go and find Hermione, grabbing Malfoy as she walked by him and dragging him behind her.

They found her sitting on Ginny's bed, still a cupcake, with her head in her hands. She glanced up as they walked into the room. "That was embarrassing," she groaned.

"Not near as bad as having my mother show up after you dyed my hair," Draco said dryly, without pity for a little bit of frosting that wasn't even close to permanent.

Hermione smirked at the memory. "I don't know; I have frosting up to my neck and cake in places cake should _not_ be, I think that a little bit worse than your mother's hysterics. Are we even now?"

Draco considered it for a moment. "Not even close Granger. Though I _am_ willing to be generous and allow you a respite until after we're finished with those identical demons."

Hermione nodded; she knew that was the best she was going to get. Now she only had to figure out how to get rid of her new outfit...


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

**A/N: I had this whole chapter finished, but I didn't like it, so I scrapped it as well as the original ending of the previous chapter... I'm not going to edit it, but if anyone is curious about what originally happened, message me and I'll send it to you... I warn you though, it got weird. This is the last chapter! There's only an epilogue left, the end rapidly approaches... Thanks to everyone who reviewed, etcetera, etcetera. **

**Disclaimer: MINE! ... In my imagination. Sadly, in reality, none of it is mine.**

The cupcake ended up being an easy thing to get rid of; it only took a quick scourgify, the lasting part of the spell was the mental trauma and resulting aversion to cupcakes. Hermione wasn't sure why, but something about being a cupcake – even if it was only for an hour – had destroyed her ability to eat the delicious treats. This unfortunate side effect of his spell was not something he was going to get away with, but they had pies to charm, so she was going to put finding some way to make him terrified of a food on the back burner for the moment. She made a mental not to put a lobster in his pants at some point – she still owed him a fear of food from when he turned her into a cupcake.

Revenge is why Draco and Hermione were once again up in the middle of the night. They were sitting on the kitchen floor with three pies laid out in front of them. "I'm still not sure how those cans had something actually edible in them..." Draco muttered as he charmed his pie.

Hermione glared at him. "Try a piece," she ordered, opening a drawer above her head without getting up. She pulled out a knife, cut him a slice of pie and handed it over.

Draco stared at her offering before asking: "Granger, shouldn't there be a fork and a plate involved in this?"

Hermione cut a piece of her own and started eating it with her fingers. "Just shut up and eat the pie," she told him, rolling her eyes. He still looked hesitant, so Hermione added: "You're telling me you've never eaten something with your hands that you shouldn't have?"

"Nope, never." Knowing that the filling came out of something as disturbing as a _can_, and that Granger made the pies, Draco was a little bit afraid of actually eating it. Hermione got tired of waiting and took it from him. She grinned evilly before squishing it all over his face.

"There, now you don't have to worry about getting your hands all dirty, you have to wash anyway to get all of that off your face," Draco was not pleased.

When he opened his mouth to yell at Granger for daring to smear pie on a _Malfoy_, she took another slice and shoved it in his mouth. He immediately started coughing, while she laughed.

"Are you _trying_ to kill me?" He demanded once he could breathe again. Draco shook his head, grimacing; he was pretty sure there was some pie in his _nose_.

Hermione was too busy laughing to notice his change of expression as he actually took a second to taste the pie of death that nearly killed him a second ago. "You know – and if you tell anyone this, I'll have to kill you – this muggle pie is actually pretty good," Hermione grinned triumphantly at him.

"I told you it wouldn't be gross."

* * *

The next day brought snow, as well as the beginnings of their pastry related revenge. Peeking around the doorway at the main entrance of the house Hermione whispered to Draco, "Okay, the twins just went outside, they said they'd be back in a second, so when we see the doorknob turn, we strike!" She followed this with some evil laughter that disturbed Draco a little bit, but he agreed.

When they saw the doorknob turn, they struck, hearing the satisfying splatter of the pies and the shocked sounds of two people who were just attacked by pastries.

Draco ran around the corner, thinking he would get to rub his victory in the pie covered faces of the twins, only to freeze and have all the blood drain from his face at the sight waiting before him. Hermione, running behind him, collided with his back, knocking them both to the floor.

When they managed to untangle themselves and Hermione finally looked up to see what had mode Malfoy stop, all the blood drained from her face as well.

In the doorway stood the regal Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, completely covered in pie. They weren't moving at the moment, but Draco was pretty sure their shock at being mauled by pies wouldn't last long, and when it wore off, something painful was going to happen to him. He turned to run, but once again collided with Hermione, who had edged behind him when she saw his parents. "Very brave Granger," he muttered to her.

Everyone present was shocked when Narcissa started laughing – hysterically. "Lucius Malfoy, you're covered in pie, the look on your face!" She exclaimed, running her finger down the length of his nose and licking it. "Mmmm strawberry rhubarb," humming happily, she started scooping pie off of her own face and eating it.

Draco groaned; his mother was embarrassing both him and his father again. "Mother," he said in exasperation, forgetting the he was supposed to be Mallory.

Lucius pulled out a handkerchief and started to wipe the remaining pie off of his face, his gaze remaining on his son. "Draco, if we hadn't been able to see through your little disguise when we got here, we would be able to now. That was very careless of you," he admonished with a frown.

Narcissa, finally distracted from the pie, threw herself at her son, immediately bursting into tears and wailing that she didn't understand where she had gone wrong. Hermione tried to edge away without being noticed, but the movement attracted Lucius' attention.

"Miss Granger, I never thought you would be the one harbouring him. If I hadn't asked Severus where he got that delightful picture of those Weasley twins, we never would have found him," he told her with a sneer, raising his voice to be heard over his wife's wails.

The commotion in the hallway was starting to attract the attention of the other people in the house. "What's going on here?" Arthur demanded; his wife and children peeking around him with glares for the Malfoys.

"Someone hit us with pies," Lucius said, annoyed. He pulled his hysterical wife away from their son to wipe the pie off of her face as well. She was making a scene in front of all these _Weasleys_, it was unacceptable. Draco was just relieved that he was free.

"Who did this?" Lucius demanded when his wife was calmer and pie free.

Hermione and Draco looked at each other, getting the same evil idea. "Fred and George, sir," Draco told him, trying to remind his father that most of the other people in the room knew who he was.

Fred and George chose that second to come back in the house, practically hitting Lucius with the door. "You two!" he said imperiously, "Come outside with me for a minute, I need to have a _word_ with the both of you."

Molly and Arthur made to stop the man from taking their sons outside, but Narcissa spoke up. "Don't worry, he wouldn't actually touch them while visiting your house, it would be too easy to pin any injuries on him." Apparently that was all the reassurance any of them were going to get, but it was enough to keep them from chasing after them.

Hermione glanced at Draco to make sure his mother was telling the truth; if anyone would know if she was lying, it would be him. He nodded discreetly, and Hermione was actually reassured, oddly enough.

Everyone in the room watched the outside door in silence, save for the occasional sniffle from Narcissa, waiting for the three outside to return.

"Should we go check on –" Molly started to ask, only to be cut off by the door opening. A very pale and subdued Fred and George came in the house followed by a smug Lucius.

"Cissa dear, we need to have a word with Mallory and then leave this... _place_," Lucius told his wife, obviously trying hard not to insult the Weasleys in their own home, probably for the sake of his son.

Narcissa nodded, and followed him outside. Draco glanced at Hermione and then at the watching Weasleys before going outside with his parents.

Mallory came back in a minute later, to the relief of everyone in the room – they didn't know what the Malfoys could possibly want with Hermione's pen pal, but they were inclined to believe the worst.

"Okay! It's lunchtime, everyone at the table!" Molly ordered, snapping out of her shock and taking charge.

Hermione sat down beside Draco; she asked him in a whisper "How did you get your parents to leave without giving away your identity?"

"Easy. I reminded Father what it would do to his reputation if word got out that his son spent his winter vacation with a bunch of blood traitors," Draco answered her in a smug whisper. Hermione didn't even bother to comment on the blood traitor thing.

Everyone else assumed that since Hermione's pen pal was a family friend of the Malfoys, she was being questioned on the location of their missing son.

Fred and George were unusually subdued during the meal, jumping at shadows and every time someone addressed them. "What did Mr. Malfoy tell you two?" Harry asked them, obviously as impatient as everyone else to know what caused the extreme change in the twins.

"Horrible, horrible things," was all anyone could get either of them to say for the course of the entire meal, causing Draco to snicker; his father always had been good at the threats – creative too, and his skill with the small, undetectable spells was unparalleled.

"My bet is Father went with the standard 'if you ever so much as look in my general direction again, I'll make sure that your children's children will hear your screams'. It's vague, but paints a nice, terrifying picture. He most likely followed that with one of his charms designed to give the victim the courage of a mouse, or an extreme fear of their own reflection," Draco whispered to Hermione as they watch the twins jump in fear when someone walked behind them.

Hermione snickered with him the second time. "I actually think your father helped us get our revenge," Hermione whispered back, "Do you think we're even yet?"

Draco contemplated it for a second, watching as the twins flinched yet again as someone passed the peas too close to them. "I actually think we _are_ pretty much even with them. If the past is anything to go on, then this paranoid behaviour should last for a month or so... There's just one more little thing I need to do." Hermione tilted her head in question.

"I spent most of my winter break as a girl, which is indirectly their fault. Want to do one big prank as revenge for my lost dignity?" Draco asked with a smirk.

"Your lost dignity is your own fault, but I'll help you, this has actually been a lot of fun, and it's not like they don't deserve it. What do you have in mind?"

Draco grinned evilly. "Something that will be as disturbing to them as having my chest stared at for an entire meal was to me."

"Which would be...?" Hermione asked. Draco glanced around the table to see if anyone had noticed their whispered conversation. Harry was watching them closely, so Draco mouthed 'later' her Hermione – he didn't want to risk someone finding out what he planned ahead of time. She nodded and they went back to their meal.

* * *

Later, in Ginny's room, Draco told Hermione and Ginny his plan for their last prank. "You mean I get to take part in this one?" Ginny asked hopefully once he was done explaining.

"Sure," Draco said as he rifled through Ginny's belongings. "We can use this thing on them. What does this torture device do?"

Ginny glared at him and snatched it back. "You're going to torture them by curling their eyelashes?" She asked dryly.

Draco pouted, it looked like it was made for horrible things and it was meant to curl eyelashes?

"When do we start?" Ginny asked excitedly, practically bouncing in her seat.

"Tonight," Draco told them both.

* * *

"Has anyone seen Fred and George?" Arthur asked the next morning during their Christmas breakfast as he looked around the room as if the missing twins were going to jump out from under the table holding fireworks – this wouldn't normally have been a concern, but they had done it in the past and it hadn't ended well.

Hermione and Draco managed to keep straight faces as they shrugged with everyone else, but Ginny couldn't help her knowing grin.

Molly, who had raised six children and knew to be weary of that look, asked worriedly "Ginny, where are your brothers?"

Ginny tried to look innocent. "I have no idea mum." Molly rolled her eyes and got up from the table to go check on the twins in their room. The three who knew what had happened waited eagerly for her reaction when she saw them.

They were not disappointed. "Ahhhhhh!" Molly screamed as she came down the stairs. "I have no idea what happened to my poor boys," she said mournfully as she glared at Ginny.

"You are in a _lot_ of trouble missy," She told Ginny.

Everyone made a mad rush upstairs to see what horrible fate had befallen the twins. They were all shocked at what they discovered.

Fred and George were still asleep, with their hair charmed into pigtails and makeup. The breast enlargement charms had been Draco's idea – he knew exactly how traumatising it could be to have one cast on you. The curled eyelashes had also been Draco doing; he felt that something as evil looking as the eyelash curler had to hurt when you used it. He had been horribly disappointed to discover that it didn't seem to be hurting them at all. If anything, it was doing him more damage than it was to them; something about curling the eyelashes of someone you hate that creeped him out on a whole new level.

The pigtails had been Hermione's idea, and the fuzzy bunny slippers had been Ginny's contribution.

"I think this has been the most eventful winter holiday ever," Ron said happily, looking at his brothers and cringing.

Everyone rolled their eyes and got back to their Christmas celebrations.

* * *

That night after dinner, Dumbledore and the order came over to celebrate the holidays in one big party. "Okay everyone! Gather together, it's time for a picture!" Dumbledore declared, shooing everyone closer together so he could fit them all in the frame.

Fred and George grumbled about it because they had been unable to remove the charms on their pigtails or their... chests. Mallory turned to give them an evil grin, "We're going to be immortalizing this moment forever so your children's children can be disturbed by the antics their fathers got into –" Fred shoved him, causing him to collide with Hermione just as Dumbledore took the picture.

Dumbledore just smiled at them and told everyone who was still attending Hogwarts that he would see them tomorrow at school.

* * *

Hermione was glad to be back at Hogwarts. She no longer had to worry about Mallory being revealed to be Malfoy, and plotting the downfall of the twins had been exhausting. She was looking forward to some nice, straightforward schoolwork.

Getting back on the train had been interesting; Mallory had to insist on walking Hermione to her train compartment, and then get out of it again as Draco Malfoy without anyone taking notice. It had been difficult, but they had managed it.

Malfoy came out of his room just as Hermione was getting ready to leave for breakfast before her first class. "So..." he said awkwardly, seeming to grasp for something to say. "Back to hating each other then?"

Hermione smiled at him. "I hated you because you were a prejudiced little cockroach, but you lived with blood traitors and spent your holidays associating with a mudblood; I know now that you're not a bad person, Draco Malfoy," she told him, kissing him on the cheek and walking out the portrait hole, leaving him stunned.

Hermione was still smiling when she got down to the great hall to meet with her friends. Harry and Ron looked murderous while Ginny looked at her nervously.

She sat down hesitantly by her friends, wondering what was going on. "What's wrong guys?" Hermione asked them.

Harry took a picture out of his bag and handed it to her. "See for yourself."

Hermione's eyes widened in horror as she saw what had everyone so upset. It was the picture Dumbledore had taken at Christmas, except apparently Malfoy's perception charm didn't work when it was in a picture. As he was stumbling from Fred's shove, Malfoy had grabbed onto Hermione to keep himself from falling, making it look like he was hugging her.

"It's not what you think," Hermione started, but she was unable to continue – it was pretty close to what they must be thinking. She sighed; it was going to be a long day.

* * *

Hermione sighed deeply as she trudged back into the head's common room, she had been right at breakfast; it _had_ been a long day. Ron had turned red and yelled, and Harry had looked at her like she had killed his puppy.

It had been horrible, but she had survived, she thought as she plopped down in one of the armchairs in front of the fire.

The portrait door suddenly slammed open to admit a very dishevelled Draco with what looked like a rapidly developing black eye.

"What happened?" Hermione asked worriedly from her chair.

"Potter," Draco spat, sitting on the couch. "I'm fine."

Hermione sighed, they were blowing this all out of proportion; it wasn't like Malfoy had been there to learn order secrets or something.

She grabbed her wand and conjured an icepack for him and passed it over. "Okay," Hermione said, curling up in her armchair, "you said you'd teach me to be an animagus, can we start now?"

"Why not? It's not like I can leave this room. The only reason they're not here now is they don't know the new password."

Hermione smiled happily, she'd deal with her friends later; right now, she was going to learn something new. A year ago, she never would have thought it possible, but it seemed perfectly reasonable now. Hermione thought she should probably thank the twins for that... Provided they hadn't done something else to make her angry before she saw them again.


	11. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

**A/N: Behold! The ending! It's a little bit shorter than the other chapters, but there was nothing else to say... Thanks to everyone who reviewed, etc.!  
**

**Disclaimer: Not mine...**

"Draco!" Hermione called from the bathroom. He tried not to snicker as he went to see why she was calling him; he had a pretty good idea already. Peeking around the door, he found his annoyed Gryffindor glaring at him.

"Is there a reason my hair is fluorescent orange?" she asked him, trying to stay calm.

"Remember back in school when you and Blaise dyed my hair emerald green? I couldn't get my revenge then because we needed to get along to get those evil twins back! Well, now I have my revenge! That dye is permanent, by the way," as soon as he finished saying this, he ran away; they may be engaged, but she wasn't above hexing him when she was angry enough.

Draco was confused when she didn't come after him. He slowly crept to the bathroom door and peeked around the frame; he was shocked to find Hermione with her normal hair back. He could only stare in confusion.

When she noticed him a second later, Hermione grinned evilly. "The only way to get the dye out is to cut it off; so I did. Then I cast a growing charm on my hair to grow it back to normal." She patted his head as she walked past him into their room. "This is why you were only the second smartest in our year."

He scowled at her retreating back, turning to walk into the bathroom. "Always ruining my fun," he muttered, apparently not quite quiet enough.

"Oh, and Draco?" She said, before he felt a spell hit him right in the head. He heard her hysterical laughter as he got to the mirror and stared at himself, horrified. He had bunny ears. _Large_, white bunny ears.

"You always did think your bunny ears were sexy," she laughed, squeaking and running when he turned and came after her.

"You expect me to go to my own wedding with bunny ears? Think of the pictures!" He yelled as he chased her around the room.

"I don't care about the pictures!" She yelled back, dodging him as he tried to capture her coming around the sofa.

"You should, they're yours too!"

Hermione grinned at him as she got to the fireplace. When he caught up to her, she kissed him quickly on the cheek and then flooed to The Burrow, where Ginny was waiting with her numerous torture devices – things like eyelash curlers.

* * *

While Hermione was beautifying, Draco was sulking. Blaise had shown up with his normal hair as well.

When Draco had questioned him about it, Blaise gave him a funny look and said, "I cut it off and then grew it back with a hair growing charm," as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, then he had made fun of Draco's bunny ears for half an hour before he helped him get rid of the things.

"Why did you have rabbit ears?" Blaise asked him when he was finally finished laughing and they were both dressed – with normal ears.

Draco ignored him – a skill he had developed out of necessity over the years, as he preened in front of the mirror. He was shocked once again over how much better he could look when he got all dressed up when he looked so good every day – perfection is a difficult thing to improve upon and he had done it.

"You've been in front of that mirror long enough to be getting ridiculous with your vain thoughts," Blaise told him dryly. "Now get your butt moving or your bride will be going down an isle with no groom at the end!" he ordered his friend as he herded him out of the room.

Draco frowned. "sexy butt Blaise, get my _sexy_ butt moving."

"I don't even want to know..." Harry muttered from the doorway. He had been sent to see what was holding up the groom, he and Ron were both in the wedding party and it was going to take all of them to keep this wedding on track – the bride and groom were prone to playing pranks on each other and everyone around them. Harry cringed as he thought about it; Ginny had been ready to murder Malfoy when Hermione told her what he had done to her hair that morning, you would think he had done something permanent.

With the cooperation of the entire wedding party, they managed to get the groom to the end of the isle and the bride to walk down it. The pair managed to do the vow part themselves; then it was time for cake.

* * *

Draco snuck up behind Hermione, she was eating her wedding cake and completely unsuspecting. He was pretty sure she was going to kill him for what he was about to do, but it would be totally worth it.

Hermione leaned close to her cake to examine a particularly pretty spun sugar flower, and that was when Draco struck. He quickly pushed her face into the cake, making sure she got it all over her face.

She was frozen in complete shock; she couldn't believe he had just done that.

When she managed to come out of her surprise enough to turn and glare at her soon to be dead husband, Hermione caught sight of Ginny, the person who had spent hours on her hair and makeup that was now ruined. She actually feared for Draco's life.

"_That's_ for squishing pie all over my face!" He told her triumphantly, not noticing his peril - Ginny was advancing on him.

Hermione got an idea and turned into her animagus form – a sparrow, and flew off into the sunset. Draco frowned after her; weren't they supposed to disappear into the sunset together? And shouldn't they at least wait until the cake was finished?

Something bounced off his head, distracting him from his musings. Draco glanced up into the tree above him to see a tiny bird pulling another acorn off of a branch, getting ready to throw it at him as well; she must have looped back when he wasn't looking and landed above him.

His eyes widened as he understood what his crafty bride wanted him to do, and there was no way she was going to get what she wanted. She bounced another acorn off of his head and he sighed, he'd been married for less than a day and he was already being bossed around – by a tiny bird no less. "You're going to be the death of me Granger... Malfoy," he told her with a grin.

Draco changed into his owl and flew up onto the tree branch beside her, giving her a look as if to ask 'what now'. She flew off of the branch and he followed, not wanting to be left behind with the wedding party, who were sure to tease him about the owl thing... And the she-weasel was looking particularly murderous this evening – though he wasn't sure why...

THE END

**A/N: I intended this story to be how it all began. Where they were in the books, they never would have had a chance together, but where I left them, there was a possibility... If that makes any sense at all. The epilogue was to tell how they ended up eventually. ****I've started the sequel, called It Started With Revenge. For those of you who are going 'how did they go from civil to married?' it's explained there. **

**~Frosty  
**


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